GIFT  OF  • 


ESSAYS. 


BY  R.  W.  EMERSON. 

11  • 


SECOND  SEEIES. 


NEW  TORE: 
A.  L.  BURT,  PUBLISHER. 


CONTENTS. 


ESSAY  L  PAOB. 

THE  POET 7 

ESSAY  II. 
EXPERIENCE •    *    »    •    49 

ESSAY  III. 
CHARACTER .    .    .    .    i    •    •    .    91 

ESSAY  IV 
MANNERS 119 

ESSAY  V. 
GIFTS 167 

ESSAY  VI. 

RE c 167 

ESSAY  VII. 

POLITICS * 197 

ESSAY  VIII. 

NOMINALIST  AND  REALIST 221 

NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS  .   .        s    .    .       247 

(8) 

869053 


THE  POET. 


A  moody  child  and  wildly  wise, 

Pursued  the  game  with  joyful  eyes, 

Which  chose,  like  meteors,  their  way, 

And  rived  the  dark  with  private  ray; 

They  overleapt  the  horizon's  edge, 

Searched  with  Apollo's  privilege; 

Through  man,  and  woman,  and  sea,  and  star, 

Saw  the  dance  of  nature  forward  far; 

Through  worlds,  and  races,  and  terms,  and  times, 

Saw  musical  order,  and  pairing  rhymes. 


(5) 


Olympian  bards  who  sung 
Divine  ideas  below, 
Which  always  find  us  young 
And  always  keep  us  so. 


ESSAY  I. 
THE    POET. 


THOSE  who  are  esteemed  umpires  of  taste,  are 
often  persons  who  have  acquired  some  knowledge  of 
admired  pictures  or  sculptures,  and  have  an  inclina 
tion  for  whatever  is  elegant;  but  if  you  inquire 
whether  they  are  beautiful  souls,  and  whether  their 
own  acts  are  like  fair  pictures,  you  learn  that  they 
are  selfish  and  sensual.  Their  cultivation  is  local, 
as  if  you  should  rub  a  log  of  dry  wood  in  one  spot 
to  produce  fire,  all  the  rest  remaining  cold.  Their 
knowledge  of  the  fine  arts  is  some  study  of  rules  and 
particulars,  or  some  limited  judgment  of  color  or 
form,  which  is  exercised  for  amusement  or  for  show. 
It  is  a  proof  of  the  shallowness  of  the  doctrine  of 
beauty,  as  it  lies  in  the  minds  of  our  amateurs,  that 
men  seem  to  have  lost  the  perception  of  the  instant 
dependence  of  form  upon  soul.  There  is  no  doctrine 
of  forms  in  our  philosophy.  We  were  put  into  our 
bodies,  as  fire  is  put  into  a  pan,  to  be  carried  about ; 


ESSAI    L 

there  ir  nt> l  accurate  adjustment  between  the 
nfl  the  organ,  .much  less  is  the  latter  the  germ 
ination  of  the  former.  So  in  regard  to  other  forms, 
the  intellectual  men  do  not  believe  in  any  essential 
dependence  of  the  material  world  on  thought  and 
volition.  Theologians  think  it  a  pretty  air-castle  to 
talk  of  the  spiritual  meaning  of  a  ship  or  a  cloud,  of 
a  city  or  a  contract,  but  they  prefer  to  come  again 
to  the  solid  ground  of  historical  evidence ;  and  even 
the  poets  are  contented  with  a  civil  and  conformed 
manner  of  living,  and  to  write  poems  from  the  fancy, 
at  a  safe  distance  from,  their  own  experience.  But 
the  highest  minds  of  the  world  have  never  ceased  to 
explore  the  double  meaning,  or,  shall  I  say,  the  quad 
ruple,  or  the  centuple,  or  much  more  manifold  mean 
ing,  of  every  sensuous  fact:  Orpheus,  Empedocles, 
Heraclitus,  Plato,  Plutarch,  Dante,  Swedenborg,  and 
the  masters  of  sculpture,  picture,  and  poetry.  For 
we  are  not  pans  and  barrows,  nor  even  porters  of  the 
fire  and  torch-bearers,  but  children  of  the  fire,  made 
of  it,  and  only  the  same  divinity  transmuted,  and  at 
two  or  three  removes,  when  we  know  least  about  it. 
And  this  hidden  truth,  that  the  fountains  whence  all 
this  river  of  Time,  and  its  creatures,  floweth,  are  in- 
trinsically  ideal  and  beautiful,  draws  us  to  the  con 
sideration  of  the  nature  and  functions  oi  the  Poet,  01 


THE   POET.  9 

the  man  of  Beauty,  to  the  means  and  materials  he 
uses,  and  to  the  general  aspect  of  the  art  in  the  pres 
ent  time. 

The  breadth  of  the  problem  is  great,  for  the  poet 
is  representative.  He  stands  among  partial  men  for 
the  complete  man,  and  apprises  us  not  of  his  wealth, 
but  of  the  commonpealth.  The  young  man  reveres 
men  of  genius,  because,  to  speak  truly,  they  are 
more  himself  than  he  is.  They  receive  of  the  soul 
as  he  also  receives,  but  they  more.  Nature  enhances 
her  beauty,  to  the  eye  of  loving  men,  from  their  be 
lief  that  the  poet  is  beholding  her  shows  at  the  same 
time.  He  is  isolated  among  his  contemporaries,  by 
truth  and  by  his  art,  but  with  this  consolation  in  his 
pursuits,  that  they  will  draw  all  men  sooner  or  later. 

v-  For  all  men  live  by  truth,  and  stand  in  need  of  ex 
pression,  x.  In  love,  in  art,  in  avarice,  in  politics,  in 
labor,  in  games,  we  study  to  utter  our  painful  secret. 

*  The  man  is  only  half  himself,  the  other  half  is  his 
expression.  * 

Notwithstanding  this  necessity  to  be  published,  ad 
equate  expression  is  rare.  I  know  not  how  it  is  that 
we  need  an  interpreter  ;  but  the  great  majority  of  men 
seen  to  be  minors,  who  have  not  yet  come  into  pos 
session  of  their  own,  or  mutes,  who  cannot  report  the 
conversation  they  have  had  with  nature.  There  is 


10  ESSAY  L 

, 

no  man  who  does  not  anticipate  a  supersensual  util 
ity  in  the  sun,  and  stars,  earth,  and  water.  These 
stand  and  wait  to  render  him  a  peculiar  service.  But 
there  is  some  obstruction,  or  some  excess  of  phlegm 
in  our  constitution,  which  does  not  suffer  them  to 
yield  the  due  effect.  Too  feeble  fall  the  impressions 
of  nature  on  us  to  make  us  artists.  Every  touch 
should  thrill.  Every  man  should  be  so  much  an  ar 
tist,  that  he  could  report  in  conversation  what  had 
befallen  him.  Yet,  in  our  experience,  the  rays  or 
appulses  have  sufficient  force  to  arrive  at  the  senses, 
but  not  enough  to  reach  the  quick,  and  compel  the 
reproduction  of  themselves  in  speech.  The  poet  is 
the  person  in  whom  these  powers  are  in  balance,  the 
man  without  impediment,  who  sees  and  handles  that 
which  others  dream  of,  traverses  the  whole  scale  of 
experience,  and  is  representative  of  man,  in  virtue  of 

•    /^c£^*^  Cr^  /  *• 

being  the  largest  power  to  receive  and  to  impart. 
-3  For  the  Universe  has  three  children,  born  at  one 
time,  which  reappear,  under  different  names,  in  every 
system  of  thought,  whether  they  be  called  cause, 
operation,  and  effect;  or,  more  poetically,  Jove, 
Pluto,  Neptune ;  or,  theologically,  the  Father,  the 
Spirit,  and  the  Son ;  but  which  we  will  call  here,  the 
Knower,  the  Doer,  and  the  Sayer.  These  stand  re 
spectively  for  the  love  of  truth,  for  the  love  of  good, 


DHE  POET.  11 

and  for  the  love  of  beauty.  These  three  are  equal. 
Each  is  that  which  he  is  essentially,  so  that  he  can 
not  be  surmounted  or  analyzed,  and  each  of  these 
three  has  the  power  of  the  others  latent  in  him,  and 
his  own  patent. 

The  poet  is  the  sayer,  the  namer,  and  represents 
beauty.  He  is  a  sovereign,  and  stands  on  the  centre. 
For  the  world  is  not  painted,  or  adorned,  but  is  from 
the  beginning  beautiful;  and  God  has  not  made 
some  beautiful  things,  but  Beauty  is  the  creator  of 
the  universe.  Therefore  the  poet  is  not  any  per 
missive  potentate,  but  is  emperor  in  his  own  right* 
Criticism  is  infested  with  a  cant  of  materialism, 
which  assumes  that  manual  skill  and  activity  is  the 
first  merit  of  all  men,  and  disparages  such  as  say  and 
do  not,  overlooking  the  fact  that  some  men,  namely, 
poets,  are  natural  sayers,  sent  into  the  world  to  the 
end  of  expression,  and  confounds  them  with  those 
whose  province  is  action,  but  who  quit  it  to  imitate 
the  sayers.  But  Homer's  words  are  as  costly  and  ad 
mirable  to  Homer,  as  Agamemnon's  victories  are  to 
Agamemnon.  The  poet  does  not  wait  for  the  hero 
or  the  sage,  but,  as  they  act  and  think  primarily,  so 
he  writes  primarily  what  will  and  must  be  spoken, 
reckoning  the  others,  though  primaries  also,  yet,  in 
respect  to  him,  secondaries  and  servants  ;  as  sitters 


12  ESSAY  1. 

or  models  in  the  studio  of  a  painter,  or  as  assistants 
who  bring  building  materials  to  an  architect. 

For  poetry  was  all  written  before  time  was,  and 
whenever  we  are  so  finely  organized  that  we  can 
penetrate  into  that  region  where  the  air  is  music,  we 
hear  those  primal  warblings,  and  attempt  to  write 
them  down,  but  we  lose  ever  and  anon  a  word,  or  a 
verse,  and  substitute  something  of  our  own,  and  thus 
miswrite  the  poem.  The  men  of  more  delicate  ear 
write  down  these  cadences  more  faithfully,  and  these 
transcripts,  though  imperfect,  become  the  songs  of 
the  nations.  For  nature  is  as  truly  beautiful  as  it  is 
good,  or  as  it  is  reasonable,  and  must  as  much  ap 
pear,  as  it  must  be  done,  or  be  known.  Words  and 
deeds  are  quite  indifferent  modes  of  the  divine  energy. 
Words  are  also  actions,  and  actions  are  a  kind  of 
words. 

The  sign  and  credentials  of  the  poet  are,  that  he 
announces  that  which  no  man  foretold.  He  is  the 
true  and  only  doctor ;  he  knows  and  tells ;  he  is  the 
only  teller  of  news,  for  he  was  present  and  privy  to 
the  appearance  which  he  describes.  He  is  a  beholder 
of  ideas,  and  an  utter  of  the  necessary  and  causal. 
For  we  do  not  speak  now  of  men  of  poetical  talents, 
or  of  industry  and  skill  in  metre,  but  of  the  true 
poet.  T  took  part  in  it  conversation  the  other  daj, 


THE  POET.  13 

concerning  a  recent  writer  of  lyrics,  a  man  of  subtle 
mind,  whose  head  appeared  to  be  a  music-box  of  del 
icate  tunes  and  rhythms,  and  whose  skill,  and  com- 
mand  of  language,  we  could  not  sufficiently  praise. 
But  when  the  question  arose,  whether  he  was  not 
only  a  lyrist,  but  a  poet,  we  were  obliged  to  confess 
that  he  is  plainly  a  contemporary,  not  an  eternal 
man.  He  does  not  stand  out  of  our  low  limitations, 
like  a  Chimborazo  under  the  line,  running  up  from 
the  torrid  base  through  all  the  climates  of  the  globe, 
with  belts  of  the  herbage  of  every  latitude  on  its 
high  and  mottled  sides  ;  but  this  genius  is  the  land 
scape-garden  of  a  modern  house,  adorned  with  foun 
tains  and  statues,  with  well-bred  men  and  women 
standing  and  sitting  in  the  walks  and  terraces.  We 
hear,  through  all  the  varied  music,  the  ground-tone 
of  conventional  life.  Our  poets  are  men  of  talents 
who  sing,  and  not  the  children  of  music.  The  argu 
ment  is  secondary,  the  finish  of  the  verses  is  pri 
mary. 

/  For  it  is  not  metres,  but  a  metre-making  argument, 
that  makes  a  poem, — a  thought  so  passionate  and 
alive,  that,  like  the  spirit  of  a  plant  or  an  animal,  it 
has  an  architecture  of  its  own,  and  adorns  nature 
with  a  new  thing.  The  thought  and  the  form  are 
equal  in  the  order  of  time,  but  in  the  order  of  genesis 


14  ESSAY   1, 

the  thought  is  prior  to  the  form.  The  poet  has  a 
new  thought :  he  has  a  whole  new  experience  to  un 
fold  •  he  will  tell  us  how  it  was  with  him,  and  all 
men  will  be  the  richer  in  his  fortune.  For,  the  ex 
perience  of  each  new  age  requires  a  new  confession, 
and  the  world  seems  always  waiting  for  its  poet.  I 
remember,  when  I  was  young,  how  much  I  was 
moved  one  morning  by  tidings  that  genius  had  ap 
peared  in  a  youth  who  sat  near  me  at  table.  He  had 
left  his  work,  and  gone  rambling  none  knew  whither, 
and  had  written  hundreds  of  lines,  but  could  not  tell 
whether  that  which  was  in  him  was  therein  told  :  he 
could  tell  nothing  but  that  all  was  changed, — man, 
beast,  heaven,  earth,  and  sea.  How  gladly  we  lis 
tened  !  how  credulous  !  Society  seemed  to  be  com 
promised.  We  sat  in  the  aurora  of  a  sunrise  which 
was  to  put  out  all  the  stars.  Boston  seemed  to  be  at 
twice  the  distance  it  had  the  night  before,  or  was 
much  farther  than  that.  Rome, — what  was  Rome? 
Plutarch  and  Shakspeare  were  in  the  yellow  leaf,  and 
Homer  no  more  should  be  heard  of.  It  is  much  to 
know  that  poetry  has  been  written  this  very  day,  un 
der  this  very  roof,  by  your  side.  What  I  that  won 
derful  spirit  has  not  expired  !  these  stony  moments  are 
still  sparkling  and  animated  !  I  had  fancied  that  the 
oracles  were  all  silent,  and  nature  had  spent  her  fires, 


THE  POET.  15 

and  behold  I  all  night,  from  every  pore,  these  fine 
auroras  have  been  streaming.  Every  one  has  some 
interest  in  the  advent  of  the  poet,  and  no  one  knows 
how  much  it  may  concern  him.  We  know  that  the 
secret  of  the  world  is  profound,  but  who  or  what_ 
shall  be  our  interpreter,  we  know  not.  A  mountain 
ramble,  a  new  style  of  face,  a  new  person,  may  put 
the  key  into  our  hands.  Of  course,  the  value  of  0 
genius  to  us  is  in  the  veracity  jof  its  report.  Talent 
may  frolic  and  juggle ;  genius  realizes  and  adds. 
Mankind,  in  good  earnest,  have  availed  so  far  in  un 
derstanding  themselves  and  their  work,  that  the  fore 
most  watchman  on  the  peak  announces  his  news.  It 
is  the  truest  word  ever  spoken,  and  the  phrase  will 
be  the  fittest,  most  musical,  and  the  unerring  voice  of 
the  world  for  that  time. 

All  that  we  call  sacred  history  attests  that  the  birth 
of  a  poet  is  the  principal  event  in  chronology.  Man, 
never  so  often  deceived,  still  watches  for  the  arrival 
of  a  brother  who  can  hold  him  steady  to  a  truth,  un 
til  he  has  made  it  his  own.  With  what  joy  I  begin 
to  read  a  poem,  which  I  confide  in  as  an  inspiration ! 
And  now  my  chains  are  to  be  broken  ;  I  shall  mount 
above  these  clouds  and  opaque  airs  in  which  I  live, 
— opaque,  though  they  seem  transparent,  — and  from 
the  heaven  of  truth  I  shall  see  and  comprehend  my 


16  ESSAY  L 

relations.  That  will  reconcile  me  to  life,  and  reno 
vate  nature,  to  see  trifles  animated  by  a  tendency, 
and  to  know  what  I  am  doing.  Life  will  no  more  be 
a  noise ;  now  I  shall  see  men  and  women,  and  know 
the  signs  by  which  they  may  be  discerned  from  fools 
and  satans.  This  day  shall  be  better  than  my  birth 
day  i  then  I  became  an  animal :  now  I  am  invited 
into  the  science  of  the  real.  Such  is  the  hope,  but 
the  fruition  is  postponed.  Oftener  it  falls,  that  this 
winged  man,  who  will  carry  me  into  the  heaven, 
whirls  me  into  the  clouds,  then  leaps  and  frisks  about 
with  me  from  cloud  to  cloud,  still  affirming  that  he 
is  bound  heavenward ;  and  I,  being  myself  a  novice, 
am  slow  in  perceiving  that  he  does  not  know  the  way 
into  the  heavens,  and  is  merely  bent  that  I  should 
admire  his  skill  to  rise,  like  a  fowl  or  a  flying  fish,  a 
little  way  from  the  ground  or  the  water ;  but  the  all- 
piercing,  all-feeding,  and  ocular  air  of  heaven,  that 
man  shall  never  inhabit.  I  tumble  down  again  soon 
into  ray  old  nooks,  and  lead  the  life  of  exaggerations 
as  before,  and  have  lost  my  faith  in  the  possibility  of 
any  guide  who  can  lead  me  thither  where  I  would 
be. 

—  But  leaving  these  victims  of  vanity,  let  us,  with 
new  hope,  observe  how  nature,  by  worthier  impulses, 
has  ensured  the  poet's  fidelity  to  his  office  of  an- 


THE    POET.  17 

nouucement  and  affirming,  namely,  by  the  beauty  of 
things,  which  becomes  a  new,  and  higher  beauty, 
when  expressed.  Nature  offers  all  her  creatures  to 
him  as  a  picture-language.  Being  used  as  a  type,  a 
second  wonderful  value  appears  in  the  object,  far 
better  than  its  old  value,  as  the  carpenter's  stretched 
cord,  if  you  hold  your  ear  close  enough,  is  musical 
in  the  breeze.  "  Things  more  excellent  than  every 
image,"  says  Jamblichus,  "  are  expressed  through  im 
ages."  —Things  admit  of  being  used  as  symbols,  be 
cause  nature  is  a  symbol,  in  the  whole,  and  in  every 
part.  Every  line  we  can  draw  in  the  sand,  has  ex 
pression  ;  and  there  is  no  body  without  its  spirit  or 
genius.  All  form  is  an  effect  of  character  ;  all  con 
dition,  of  the  quality  of  the  life;  all  harmony,  of 
health ;  (and,  for  this  reason,  a  perception  of  beauty 
should  be  sympathetic,  or  proper  only  to  the  good.) 
The  beautiful  rests  on  the  foundations  of  the  neces 
sary.  The  soul  makes  the  body,  as  the  wise  Spense* 
teaches : — 


"  So  every  spirit,  as  it  is  most  pure, 
And  hath  in  it  the  more  of  heavenly  light, 
So  it  the  fairer  body  doth  procure 
To  habit  in,  and  it  more  fairly  dight, 
With  cheerful  grace  and  amiable  sight. 
For,  of  the  soul,  the  body  form  doth  take, 
For  soul  is  form,  aud  doth  the  body  make.' 

2 


18  ESSAY  I. 

Here  we  find  ourselves,  suddenly,  not  in  a  critical 
speculation,  but  in  a  holy  place,  and  should  go  very 
warily  and  reverently.  We  stand  before  the  secret 
of  the  world,  there  where  Being  passes  into  Appear 
ance,  and  Unity  into  Variety. 

•  I  ^  The  Universe  is  the  externisation  of  the  soul. 
Wherever  the  life  is,  that  bursts  into  appearance 
Around  it.  Our  science  is  sensual,  and  therefore  su 
perficial.  The  earth,  and  the  heavenly  bodies,  phys 
ics,  and  chemistry,  we  sensually  treat,  as  if  they 
were  self-existent ;  but  these  are  the  retinue  of  that 
Being  we  have.  "  The  mighty  heaven,"  said  Proclus, 
"  exhibits,  in  its  transfigurations,  clear  images  of  the 
splendor  of  intellectual  perceptions ;  being  moved 
in  conjunction  with  the  unapparent  periods  of  intel 
lectual  natures."  C  Therefore,  science  always  goes 
abreast  with  the  just  elevation  of  the  man,  keeping 
step  with  religion  and  metaphysics;  or,  the  state  of 
science  is  an  index  of  our  self-knowledge.)  Since 
everything  in  nature  answers  to  a  moral  power,  if 
any  phenomenon  remains  brute  and  dark,  it  is  that 
the  corresponding  faculty  in  the  observer  is  not  yet 
Active. 

No  wonder,  then,  if  these  waters  be  so  deep,  that 
we  hover  over  them  with  a  religious  regard.  The 
beauty  of  the  fable  proves  the  importance  of  the 


THE   POET.  19 

sense ;  to  the  poet,  and  to  all  others ;  or,  if  you 
please,  every  man  is  so  far  a  poet  as  to  be  susceptible 
of  these  enchantments  of  nature:  for  all  men  have 
the  thoughts  whereof  the  universe  is  the  celebration. 
I  find  that  the  fascination  resides  in  the  symbol.  • 
Who  loves  nature  ?  Who  does  not  ?  Is  it  only 
poets,  and  men  of  leisure  and  cultivation,  who  live 
with  her?  No;  but  also  hunters,  farmers,  grooms, 
and  butchers,  though  they  express  their  affection  in 
their  choice  of  life,  and  not  in  their  choice  of  words. 
The  writer  wonders  what  the  coachman  or  the  hunter 
values  in  riding,  in  horses,  and  dogs.  It  is  not 
superficial  qualities.  When  you  talk  with  him,  he 
holds  these  at  as  slight  a  rate  as  you.  His  worship 
is  sympathetic  ;  he  has  no  definitions,  but  he  is  com 
manded  in  nature,  by  the  living  power  which  he  feels 
to  be  there  present.  No  imitation,  or  playing  of 
these  things,  would  content  him ;  he  loves  the  earn 
est  of  the  north-wind,  of  rain,  of  stone,  and  wood, 
and  iron.  A  beauty  not  explicable,  is  dearer  than  a 
beauty  which  we  can  see  to  the  end  of.  It  is  nature 
the  symbol,  nature  certifying  the  supernatural,  body 
overflowed  by  life,  which  he  worships,  with  coarse, 
but  sincere  rites. 

-  The  inwardness,  and  mystery,  of  this  attachment, 
drives  men   of  every  class  to  the  use  of  emblems. 


20  ESSAY  L 

The  schools  of  poets,  and  philosophers,  are  not  more 
intoxicated  with  their  symbols,  than  the  populace 
with  theirs.  In  our  political  parties,  compute  the 
power  of  badges  and  emblems.  See  the  great  ball 
which  they  roll  from  Baltimore  to  Bunker  hill!  In 
the  political  processions,  Lowell  goes  in  a  loom,  and 
Lynn  in  a  shoe,  and  Salem  in  a  ship.  Witness  the 
cider- barrel,  the  log-cabin,  the  hickory-stick,  the 
palmetto,  and  all  the  cognizances  of  party.  See  the 
power  of  national  emblems.  Some  stars,  lilies, 
leopards,  a  crescent,  a  lion,  an  eagle,  or  other  figure, 
which  came  into  credit  God  knows  how,  on  an  old 
rag  of  bunting,  blowing  in  the  wind,  on  a  fort,  at 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  shall  make  the  blood  tingle 
under  the  rudest,  or  the  most  conventional  exterior. 
The  people  fancy  they  hate  poetry,  and  they  are  all 
poets  and  mystics  ! 
•  Beyond  this  universality  of  the  symbolic  language, 

f 

we  are  apprised  of  the  divineness  of  this  superior  use 
of  things,  whereby  the  world  is  a  temple,  whose  walls 
are  covered  with  emblems,  pictures,  and  command 
ments  of  the  Deity,  in  this,  that  there  is  no  fact  in 
nature  which  does  not  carry  the  whole  sense  of  na 
ture  ;  and  the  distinctions  which  we  make  in  events, 
and  in  affairs,  of  low  and  high,  honest  and  base,  dis 
appear  when  nature  is  used  as  a  symbol.  Thought 


THE  POET.  21 

makes  everything  fit  for  use.  The  vocabulary  of  an 
omniscient  man  would  embrace  words  and  images 
excluded  from  polite  conversation.  What  would  be 
base,  or  even  obscene,  to  the  obscene,  becomes  illus 
trious,  spoken  in  a  new  connexion  of  thought.  The 
piety  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  purges  their  grossness. 
The  circumcision  is  an  example  of  the  power  of 
poetry  to  raise  the  low  and  offensive.  Small  and 
mean  things  serve  as  well  as  great  symbols.  The 
meaner  the  type  by  which  a  law  is  expressed,  the 
more  pungent  it  is,  and  the  more  lasting  in  the 
memories  of  men :  just  as  we  choose  the  smallest 
box,  or  case,  in  which  any  needful  untensil  can  be 
carried.  Bare  lists  of  words  are  found  suggestive,  to 
an  imaginative  and  excited  mind ;  as  it  is  related  of 
Lord  Chatham,  that  he  was  accustomed  to  read  in 
Bailey's  Dictionary,  when  he  was  preparing  tc  speak 
in  Parliament.  The  poorest  experience  is  rich 
enough  for  all  the  purposes  of  expressing  thought. 
Why  covet  a  knowledge  of  new  facts  ?  Day  and 
night,  house  and  garden,  a  few  books,  a  few  actions, 
serve  us  as  well  as  would  all  trades  and  all  spectacles. 
We  are  far  from  having  exhausted  the  significance 
of  the  few  symbols  we  use.  We  can  come  to  use 
them  yet  with  a  terrible  simplicity.  It  does,  not 
need  that  a  poem  should  be  long.  Every  word  was 


22  ESSAY   L 

once  a  poem.  Every  new  relation  is  a  new  word 
Also,  we  use  defects  and  deformities  to  a  sacred  pur 
pose,  so  expressing  our  sense  that  the  evils  of  the 
world  are  such  only  to  the  evil  eye.  In  the  old 
mythology,  mythologists  observe,  defects  are  ascribed 
to  divine  natures,  as  lameness  to  Vulcan,  blindness 
to  Cupid,  and  the  like,  to  signify  exuberances. 

For,  as  it  is  dislocation  and  detachment  from  the 
life  of  God,  that  makes  things  ugly,  the  poet,  who  re- 
attaches  things  to  nature  and  the  Whole, — re-attach 
ing  even  artificial  things,  and  violations  of  nature,  to 
nature,  by  a  deeper  insight, — disposes  very  easily  of 
the  most  disagreeable  facts.  Readers  of  poetry  see 
the  factory -village  and  the  railway,  and  fancy  that 
the  poetry  of  the  landscape  is  broken  up  by  these  ;  for 
these  works  of  art  are  not  yet  consecrated  in  their 
reading  ;  but  the  poet  sees  them  fall  within  the  great 
Order  not  less  than  the  bee-hive,  or  the  spider's 
geometrical  web.  Nature  adopts  them  very  fast 
into  her  vital  circles,  and  the  gliding  train  of  cars 
she  loves  like  her  own.  Besides,  in  a  central  mind, 
it  signifies  nothing  how  many  mechanical  inventions 
you  exhibit.  Though  you  add  millions,  and  never  so 
surprising,  the  fact  of  mechanics  has  riot  gained  a 
grain's  weight.  The  spiritual  fact  remains  unalter. 
able,  by  many  or  by  few  particulars ;  as  no  mountain 


THE   POET.  28 

is  of  any  appreciable  height  to  break  the  curve  of 
the  sphere.    A  shrewd  country-boy  goes  to  the  city  for 
the  first  time,  and  the  complacent  citizen  is  not  satis 
fied  with  his  little  wonder.     It  is  not  that  he  does 
not  see  all  the  fine  houses,  and  know  that  he  never 
saw  such  before,  but  he  disposes  of  them  as  easily  as 
the  poet   finds   place   for   the  railway.     The   chief  I 
value  of  the  new  fact,  is  to  enhance  the  great  and  I 
constant   fact   of   Life,   which   can   dwarf  any   and 
every    circumstance,    and    to    which    the   belt   of 
wampum,  and  the  commerce  of  America,  are  alike. 
The  world  being  thus  put  under  the  mind  for  verb 
(  and  noun,  the  poet  isjhe  who  can  articulate  it.     For, 
though  life  is  great,  and  fascinates,  and  absorbs, — 
and  though  all  men  are  intelligent  of  the  symbols 
through  which  it  is  named, — yet  they  cannot  origi 
nally  use  them.     We  are  symbols,  and*  inhabit  sym 
bols  ;  workman,  work,  and  tools,  words  and  things, 
birth  and  death,  all  are  emblems ;  but  we  sympathize 
with   the  symbols,  and,  being  infatuated  with   the 
economical  uses  of  things,  we  do  not  know  that  they 
are  thoughts,  f  The  poet,  by  an  ulterior  intellectual  / 
perception,  gives  them  a  power  which  makes  their  / 
old  use  forgotten,  and  puts  eyes,  and  a  tongue,  into  / 
every  dumb  and  inanimate  object.  )  He  perceives  the* 
independence  of  the  thought  on  the  symbol,  the  sta- 


24  ESSAY  1 

^      >. 

bility  of  the  thought,  the  aecideocy  and  fugacity  of 
the  symbol.  As  the  eyes  of  Lyncseus  were  said  to 
see  through  the  earth,  so  the  poet  turns  the  world  to 
glass,  and  shows  us  all  things  in  their  right  series 
I  and  procession.  For,  through  that  better  percep- 
\  tion,  he  stands  one  step  nearer  to  things,  and  sees 
the  flowing  or  metamorphosis ;  perceives  that 
thought  is  multiform  ;  that  within  the  form  of  every 
creature  is  a  force  impelling  it  to  ascend  into  a 
higher  form ;  and,  following  with  his  eyes  the  life, 
uses  the  forms  which  express  that  life,  and  so  his 
speech  flows  with  the  flowing  of  nature.  All  the 
facts  of  the  animal  economy,  sex,  nutriment,  gesta 
tion,  birth,  growth,  are  symbols  of  the  passage  of  the 
world  into  the  soul  of  man,  to  suffer  there  a  change, 
and  reappear  a  new  and  higher  fact.  He  uses  forms 
according  to  the  life,  and  not  according  to  the  form. 
This  is  true  science.  The  poet  alone  knows  astron 
omy,  chemistry,  vegetation,  and  animation,  for  he 
does  not  stop  at  these  facts,  but  employs  them  as 
signs.  He  knows  why  the  plain,  or  meadow  of  space, 
was  strown  with  these  flowers  we  call  suns,  and 
moons,  and  stars ;  why  the  great  deep  is  adorned 
with  animals,  with  men,  and  gods  ;  for,  in  every  word 
he  speaks  he  rides  on  them  as  the  horses  of  thought. 
f  By  virtue  of  this  science  the  poet  is  the  Namer,  or 


THE  POET.  25 

Language-maker,  naming  things  sometimes  after 
their  appearance,  sometimes  after  their  essence,  and 
giving  to  every  one  its  own  name  and  not  another's, 
thereby  rejoicing  the  intellect,  which  delights  in  de 
tachment  or  boundary.  The  poets  made  all  the 
words,  and  therefore  language  is  the  archives  of  his 
tory,  and,  if  we  must  say  it,  a  sort  of  tomb  of  the 
muses.  For,  though  the  origin  of  most  of  our  words 
is  forgotten,  each  word  was  at  first  a  stroke  of 
genius,  and  obtained  currency,  because  for  the  mo 
ment  it  symbolized  the  world  to  the  first  speaker 
and  to  the  hearer.  The  etymologist  finds  the  dead 
est  word  to  have  been  once  a  brilliant  picture.  Lan 
guage  is  fossil  poetry.  As  the  limestone  of  the 
continent  consists  of  infinite  masses  of  the  shells  of 
animalcules,  so  language  is  made  up  of  images,  or 
tropes,  which  now,  in  their  secondary  use,  have  long 
ceased  to  remind  us  of  their  poetic  origin.  But  the 
poet  names  the  thing  because  he  sees  it,  or  comes  • 
one  step  nearer  to  it  than  any  other.  This  expres 
sion,  or  naming,  is  not  art,  but  a  second  nature, 
grown  out  of  the  first,  as  a  leaf  out  of  a  tree.  What 
we  call  nature,  is  a  certain  self-regulated  motion,  or 
change  ;  and  nature  does  all  things  by  her  own 
hands,  and  does  not  leave  another  to  baptise  her, 
but  baptises  herself ;  and  this  through  the  metamor* 


26  ESSAY    L 

phosis  again.     I  remember  that  a  certain  poet  de 
scribed  it  to  me  thus : 

Genius  is  the  activity  which  repairs  the  decays  of 
things,  whether  wholly  or  partly  of  a  material  anCJ 
finite  kind.  Nature,  through  all  her  kingdoms,  in 
sures  herself.  Nobody  cares  for  planting  the  poor 
fungus :  so  she  shakes  down  from  the  gills  of  one 
agaric  countless  spores,  any  one  of  which,  being  pre 
served,  transmits  new  billions  of  spores  to-morrow  or 
next  day.  The  new  agaric  of  this  hour  has  a  chance 
which  the  old  one  had  not.  This  atom  of  seed  is 
thrown  into  a  new  place,  not  subject  to  the  accidents 
which  destroyed  its  parent  two  rods  off.  She  makes 
a  man  ;  and  having  brought  him  to  ripe  age,  she  will 
no  longer  run  the  risk  of  losing  this  wonder  at  a 
blow,  but  she  detaches  from  him  a  new  self,  that  the 
kind  may  be  safe  from  accidents  to  which  the  indi 
vidual  is  exposed.  So  when  the  soul  of  the  poet  has 
come  to  ripeness  of  thought,  she  detaches  and  senda 
away  from  it  its  poems  or  songs, — a  fearless,  sleep 
less,  deathless  progeny,  which  is  not  exposed  to  the 
accidents  of  the  weary  kingdom  of  time  :  a  fearless, 
vivacious  offspring,  clad  with  wings,  (such  was  the 
virtue  of  the  soul  out  of  which  they  came),  which 
carry  them  fast  and  far,  and  infix  them  irrecoverably 


THE  POET.  27 

into  the  hearts  of  men.     These  wings  are  the  beauty 
of  the  poet's  soul.     The  songs,  thus  flying  immortal 
from  their  mortal  parent,  are  pursued  by  clamorous 
flights  of  censures,  which  swarm  in  far  greater  num 
bers,  and  threaten  to  devour  them  ;  but  these  last  are 
not  winged.     At  the  end  of  a  very  short  leap  they 
fall  plump  down,  and  rot,  having  received  from  the 
souls  out  of  which  they  came  no  beautiful  wings.  I 
But  the  melodies  of  the  poet  ascend,  and  leap,  and  » 
pierce  into  the  deeps  of  infinite  time. 

So  far  the  bard  taught  me,  using  his  freer  speech. 
But  nature  has  a  higher  end,  in  the  production  of 
new  individuals,  than  security,  namely,  ascension,  or, 
the  passage  of  the  soul  into  higher  forms.  I  knew, 
in  my  younger  days,  the  sculptor  who  made  the 
statue  of  the  youth  which  stands  in  the  public  gar 
den.  He  was,  as  I  remember,  unable  to  tell,  di 
rectly,  what  made  him  happj',  or  unhappy,  but  by 
wonderful  indirections  he  could  tell.  He  rose  one 
day,  according  to  his  habit,  before  the  dawn,  and 
saw  the  morning  break,  grand  as  the  eternity  out  of 
which  it  came,  and,  for  many  days  after,  he  strove  to 
express  this  tranquillity,  and,  lo  !  his  chisel  had  fash 
ioned  out  of  marble  the  form  of  a  beautiful  youth, 
Phosphorus,  whose  aspect  is  such,  that,  it  is  said,  all 


28  ESSAY    I. 

persons  who  look  on  it  become  silent.  The  poet  also 
resigns  himself  to  his  mood,  and  that  thought  which 
agitated  him  is  expressed,  but  alter  idem,  in  a  manner 
totally  new.  The  expression  is  organic,  or,  the  new- 
type  which  things  themselves  take  when  liberated. 
As,  in  the  sun,  objects  paint  their  images  on  the 
retina  of  the  eye,  so  they,  sharing  the  aspiration  of 
the  whole  universe,  tend  to  paint  a  far  more  delicate 
copy  of  their  essence  in  his  mind.  )  Like  the  meta 
morphosis  of  things  into  higher  organic  forms,  is 
their  change  into  melodies.  Over  everything  stands 
its  dsemon,  or  soul,  and,  as  the  form  of  the  thing  ig 
reflected  by  the  eye,  so  the  soul  of  the  thing  is  re 
flected  by  a  melody.  The  sea,  the  mountain-ridge, 
Niagara,  and  every  flower-bed,  pre-exist,  or  super- 
exist,  in  pre-cantations,  which  sail  like  odors  in  the 
air,  and  when  any  man  goes  by  with  an  ear  suffi 
ciently  fine,  he  overhears  them,  and  endeavors  to 
write  down  the  notes,  without  diluting  or  depraving 
them.  And  herein  is  the  legitimation  of  criticism,  in 
the  mind's  faith,  that  the  poems  are  a  corrupt  version 
of  some  text  in  nature,  with  which  they  ought  to  be 
made  to  tally.  A  rhyme  in  one  of  our  sonnets  should 
not  be  less  pleasing  than  the  iterated  nodes  of  a  sea- 
shell,  or  the  resembling  difference  of  a  group  of 
flowers.  The  pairing  of  the  birds  is  an  idyl,  not 


THE  POET.  29 

tedious  as  our  idyls  are ;  a  tempest  is  a  rough  ode 
without  falsehood  or  rant ;  a  summer,  with  its  har 
vest  sown,  reaped,  and  stored,  is  an  epic  song,  subor 
dinating  how  many  admirably  executed  parts.  Why 
should  not  the  symmetry  and  truth  that  modulate 
these,  glide  into  our  spirits,  and  we  participate  the 
invention  of  nature  ? 

This  insight,  which  expresses  itself  by  what  is 
called  Imagination,  is  a  very  high  sort  of  seeing, 
which  does  not  come  by  study,  but  by  the  intellect 
being  where  and  what  it  sees,  by  sharing  the  path,  or 
circuit  of  things  through  forms,  and  so  making  them 
translucid  to  others.  The  path  of  things  is  silent 
Will  they  suffer  a  speaker  to  go  with  them  ?  A  spy 
they  will  not  suffer  ;  a  lover,  a  poet,  is  the  transcend 
ency  of  their  own  nature, — him  they  will  suffer. 
The  condition  of  true  naming,  on  the  poet's  part,  is 
his  resigning  himself  to  the  divine  aura  which 
breathes  through  forms,  and  accompanying  that. 

It  is  a  secret  which  every  intellectual  man  quickly 
learns,  that,  beyond  the  energy  of  his  possessed  and 
conscious  intellect,  he  is  capable  of  a  new  energy  (as 
of  an  intellect  doubled  on  itself),  by  abandonment  to 
the  nature  of  things ;  that,  besides  his  privacy  of 
power  as  an  individual  man,  there  is  a  great  public 
power,  on  which  he  can  draw,  by  unlocking,  at  all 


80  ESSAY    I. 

risks,  his  human  doors,  and  suffering  the  ethereal 
tides  to  roll  and  circulate  through  him  ;  then  he  is 
caught  up  into  the  life  of  the  Universe,  his  speech  is 
thunder,  his  thought  is  law,  and  his  words  are  uni 
versally  intelligible  as  the  plants  and  animals.  The 
poet  knows  that  he  speaks  adequately,  then,  only 
when  he  speaks  somewhat  wildly,  or,  "  with  the 
flower  of  the  mind ;  "  not  with  the  intellect,  used  as 
an  organ,  but  with  the  intellect  released  from  all 
service,  and  suffered  to  take  its  direction  from  its 
celestial  life ;  or,  as  the  ancients  were  wont  to  ex 
press  themselves,  not  with  intellect  alone,  but  with 
the  intellect  inebriated  by  nectar.  As  the  traveller 
who  has  lost  his  way,  throws  his  reins  on  his  horse's 
neck,  and  trusts  to  the  instinct  of  the  animal  to  find 
his  road,  so  must  we  do  with  the  divine  animal  who 
carries  us  through  this  world.  For  if  in  any  manner 
we  can  stimulate  this  instinct,  new  passages  are 
opened  for  us  into  nature,  the  mind  flows  into  and 
through  things  hardest  and  highest,  and  the  meta 
morphosis  is  possible. 

'  This  is  the  reason  why  bards  love  wine,  mead,  nar 
cotics,  coffee,  tea,  opium,  the  fumes  of  sandal-wood 
and  tobacco,  or  whatever  other  species  of  animal  ex- 
hilaration.  All  men  avail  themselves  of  such  means 
as  they  can,  to  add  this  extraordinary  power  to  their 


THE   POET.  31 

norma.  powers ;  and  to  this  end  they  prize  conversa 
tion,  music,  pictures,  sculpture,  dancing,  theatres, 
travelling,  war,  mobs,  fires,  gaming,  politics,  or  love, 
or  science,  or  animal  intoxication,  which  are  several 
coarser  or  finer  <?w<m'-mechanical  substitutes  for  the 
true  nectar,  which  is  the  ravishment  of  the  intellect 
by  coming  nearer  to  the  fact.     These  are  auxiliaries 
to  the  centrifugal  tendency  of  a  man,  to  his  passage 
out  into  free  space,  and  they  help  him  to  escape  the 
custody  of  that  body  in  which  he  is  pent  up,  and  of 
that  jail-yard  of  individual  relations  in  which  he  is 
enclosed.     Hence  a  great  number  of  such  as  were 
professionally    expressors   of    Beauty,   as   painters, 
poets,  musicians,  and  actors,  have  been  more  than 
others   wont  to   lead  a  life  of  pleasure  and  indul 
gence,  all  but  the  few  who  received  the  true  nectar  ; 
and,  as  it  was  a  spurious  mode  of  attaining  freedom, 
as  it  was  an  emancipation  not  into  the  heavens,  but 
into  the  freedom  of  baser  places,  they  were  punished  \ 
for  that  advantage  they  won,  by  a  dissipation  and  de 
terioration.     But  never  can  any  advantage  be  taken  I 
of  nature  by  a  trick.     The  spirit  of  the  world,  the 
great  calm  presence  of  the  creator,  comes  not  forth  to 
the   sorceries   of  opium   or   of  wine.     The  sublime   i 
vision  comes  to  the  pure  and  simple  soul  in  a  clean  / 
and  chaste  body.     That  is  not  an  inspiration  whi^b 


32  ESSAY    i. 

we  owe  to  narcotics,  but  some  counterfeit  excite* 
ment  and  fury.  Milton  says,  that  the  lyric  poet  may 
drink  wine  and  live  generously,  but  the  epic  poet,  he 
who  shall  sing  of  the  gods,  and  their  descent  unto 
men,  must  drink  water  out  of  a  wooden  bowl.  For 
poetry  is  not  'Devil's  wine,'  but  God's  wine.  It  is 
with  this  as  it  is  with  toys.  We  fill  the  hands  and 
nurseries  of  our  children  with  all  manner  of  dolls, 
drums,  and  horses,  withdrawing  their  eyes  from  the 
plain  face  and  sufficing  objects  of  nature,  the  sun, 
and  moon,  the  animals,  the  water,  and  stones,  which 
should  be  their  toys.  So  the  poet's  habit  of  living 
should  be  set  on  a  key  so  low  and  plain,  that  the 
common  influences  should  delight  him.  His  cheer- 
fulness  should  be  the  gift  of  the  sunlight ;  the  air 
should  suffice  for  his  inspiration,  and  he  should  be 
tipsy  with  water.  That  spirit  which  suffices  quiet 
hearts,  which  seems  to  come  forth  to  such  from  every 
dry  knoll  of  sere  grass,  from  every  pine-stump,  and 
half-imbedded  stone,  on  which  the  dull  March  sun 
shines,  comes  forth  to  the  poor  and  hungry,  and  such 
as  are  of  simple  taste.  If  thou  fill  thy  brain  with 
Boston  and  New  York,  with  fashion  and  covetous- 
ness,  and  wilt  stimulate  thy  jaded  senses  with  wine 
and  French  coffee,  thou  shalt  find  no  radiance  of 
wisdom  iu  the  lonely  waste  of  the  pinewood. 


THE    POET.  88 

If  the  imagination  intoxicates  the  poet,  it  is  not 
inactive  in  other  men.  The  metamorphosis  excites  in 
the  beholder  an  emotion  of  joy.  The  use  of 
symbols  has  a  certain  power  of  emancipation  and  ex 
hilaration  for  all  men.  We  seem  to  be  touched  by  a 
wand,  which  makes  us  dance  and  run  about  happily, 
like  children.  We  are  like  persons  who  come  out 
of  a  cave  or  cellar  into  the  open  air.  This  is  the 
effect  on  us  of  tropes,  fables,  oracles,  and  all  poetic 
forms.  Poets  are  thus  liberating  gods.  Men  have 
really  got  a  new  sense,  and  found  within  their  world, 
another  world,  or  nest  of  worlds  ;  for,  the  metamor 
phosis  once  seen,  we  divine  that  it  does  not  stop.  I 
will  not  now  consider  how  much  this  makes  the 
charm  of  algebra  and  the  mathematics,  which  also 
have  their  tropes,  but  it  is  felt  in  every  definition  ; 
as,  when  Aristotle  defines  space  to  be  an  immovable 
vessel,  in  which  things  are  contained; — or,  when 
Plato  defines  a  line  to  be  a  flowing  point ;  or,  figure 
to  be  a  bound  of  solid ;  and  many  the  like.  What  a 
joyful  sense  of  freedom  we  have,  when  ^"itruvius 
announces  the  old  opinion  of  artists  that  no  architect 
can  build  any  house  well,  who  does  not  know  some 
thing  of  anatomy.  When  Socrates,  in  Charmides, 
tells  us  that  the  soul  is  cured  of  its  maladies  by  cer 
tain  incantations,  and  that  these  incantations  are 
8 


84  ESSAY    I. 

beautiful  reasons,  from  which  temperance  is  gener 
ated  in  souls ;  when  Plato  calls  the  world  an  animal ; 
and  TimiEus  affirms  that  the  plants  also  are  animals ; 
or  affirms  a  man  to  be  a  heavenly  tree,  growing  with 
his  root,  which  is  his  head,  upward ;  and,  as  George 
Chapman,  following  him,  writes, — 

"  So  in  our  tree  of  man,  whose  nervie  root 
Springs  in  his  top  ;  " 

when  Orpheus  speaks  of  hoariness  as  "that  white 
flower  which  marks  extreme  old  age ;  "  when  Proclus 
calls  the  universe  the  statue  of  the  intellect ;  when 
Chaucer,  in  his  praise  of  '  Gentilesse,'  compares  good 
blood  in  mean  condition  to  fire,  which,  though  carried 
to  the  darkest  house  betwixt  this  and  the  mount  of 
Caucasus,  will  yet  hold  its  natural  office,  and  burn  as 
bright  as  if  twenty  thousand  men  did  it  behold; 
when  John  saw,  in  the  apocalypse,  the  ruin  of  the 
world  through  evil,  and  the  stars  fall  from  heaven, 
as  the  figtree  casteth  her  untimely  fruit ;  when  JEsop 
reports  the  whole  catalogue  of  common  daily  rela 
tions  through  the  masquerade  of  birds  and  beasts; — - 
we  take  the  cheerful  hint  of  the  immortality  of  our 
essence,  and  its  versatile  habit  and  escapes,  as  when 
the  gypsies  say,  "it  is  in  vain  to  hang  them,  they 
cannot  die.'* 


THE    POET.  35 

/3  The  poets  are  thus  liberating  gods.  The  ancient 
British  bards  had  for  the  title  of  their  order,  "  Those 
who  are  free,  throughout  the  world."  They  are  free, 
and  they  make  free.  An  imaginative  book  renders 
us  much  more  service  at  first,  by  stimulating  us 
through  its  tropes,  than  afterward,  when  we  arrive 
at  the  precise  sense  of  the  author.  I  think  nothing 
is  of  any  value  in  books,  excepting  the  transcen 
dental  and  extraordinary.  If  a  man  is  inflamed  and 
carried  away  by  his  thoughts,  to  that  degree  that  he 
forgets  the  authors  and  the  public,  and  heeds  only 
this  one  dream,  which  holds  him  like  an  insanity,  let 
me  read  his  paper,  and  you  may  have  all  the  argu 
ments  and  histories  and  criticism.  All  the  value 
which  attaches  to  Pythagoras,  Paracelsus,  Cornelius 
Agrippa,  Cardan,  Kepler,  Swedenborg,  Schelling, 
Oken,  or  any  other  who  introduces  questionable 
facts  into  his  cosmogony,  as  angels,  devils,  magic, 
astrology,  palmistry,  mesmerism,  and  so  on,  is  the 
certificate  we  have  of  departure  from  routine,  and 
that  here  is  a  new  witness.  That  also  is  the  best 
success  in  conversation,  the  magic  of  liberty,  which 
puts  the  world,  like  a  ball,  in  our  hands.  How 
cheap  even  the  liberty  then  seems;  how  mean  to 
study,  when  an  emotion  communicates  to  the  in 
tellect  the  power  to  sap  and  upheave  nature :  how 


36  ESSAY    L 

great  the  perspective !  nations,  times,  systems,  entev 
and  disappear,  like  threads  in  tapestry  of  large  figure 
and  many  colors ;  dream  delivers  us  to  dream,  and, 
while  the  drunkenness  lasts,  we  will  sell  our  bed, 
our  philosopt  ,  our  religion,  in  our  opulence. 
fk  There  is  good  reason  why  we  should  prize  this 
liberation.  The  fate  of  the  poor  shepherd,  who, 
blinded  and  lost  in  the  snow-storm,  perishes  in  a 
drift  within  a  few  feet  of  his  cottage  door,  is  an 
emblem  of  the  state  of  man.  On  the  brink  of  the 
waters  of  life  and  truth,  we  are  miserably  dying. 
The  inaccessibleness  of  every  thought  but  that  we 
are  in,  is  wonderful.  What  if  you  come  near  to  it, 
— you  are  as  remote,  when  you  are  nearest,  as  when 
you  are  farthest.  Every  thought  is  also  a  prison ; 
every  heaven  is  also  a  prison.  Therefore  we  love  the 
poet,  the  inventor,  who  in  any  form,  whether  in  an 
ode,  or  in  an  action,  or  in  looks  and  behavior,  has 
yielded  us  a  new  thought.  He  unlocks  our  chains, 
and  admits  us  to  a  new  scene. 

This  emancipation  is  dear  to  all  men,  and  the 
power  to  impart  it,  as  it  must  come  from  greater 
depth  and  scope  of  thought,  is  a  measure  of  intel 
lect.  Therefore  all  books  of  the  imagination  endure, 
all  which  ascend  to  that  truth,  that  the  writer  sees 
nature  beneath  him,  and  uses  it  as  his  exponent 


THE    POET.  87 

Every  verse  or  sentence,  possessing  this  virtue,  will 
take  care  of  its  own  immortality.  The  religions  of 
the  world  are  the  ejaculations  of  a  few  imaginative 
men. 

:.j,1But  the  quality  of  the  imagination  is  to  flow,  andl 
not  to  freeze.  The  poet  did  not  stop  at  the  color,  or 
the  form,  but  re$d  their  meaning ;  neither  may  he 
rest  in  this  meaning,  but  he  makes  the  same  objects 
exponents  of  his  new  thought.  Here  is  the  differ 
ence  betwixt  the  poet  and  the  mystic,  that  the  last 
nails  a  symbol  to  one  sense,  which  was  a  true  sense 
for  a  moment,  but  soon  becomes  old  and  false.  For 
all  symbols  are  fluxional ;  all  language  is  vehicular 
and  transitive,  and  is  good,  as  ferries  and  horses  are, 
for  conveyance,  not  as  farms  and  houses  are,  for 
homestead.  Mysticism  consists  in  the  mistake  of 
an  accidental  and  individual  symbol  for  an  universal 
one.  The  morning-redness  happens  to  be  the 
favorite  meteor  to  the  eyes  of  Jacob  Behmen,  and 
comes  to  stand  to  him  for  truth  and  faith;  and 
he  believes  should  stand  for  the  same  realities  to 
every  reader.  But  the  first  reader  prefers  as  natur 
ally  the  symbol  of  a  mother  and  child,  or  a  gardener 
and  his  bulb,  or  a  jeweller  polishing  a  gem.  Either 
of  these,  or  of  a  myriad  more,  are  equally  good  to 
the  person  to  whom  they  are  significant.  Only  the? 


83  ESSAY  1. 

must  be  held  lightly,  and  be  very  willingly  trans 
lated  into  the  equivalent  terms  which  others  use. 
And  the  mystic  must  be  steadily  told, — All  that  you 
say  is  just  as  true  without  the  tedious  use  of  that 
symbol  as  with  it.  Let  as  have  a  little  algebra,  in 
stead  of  this  trite  rhetoric, — universal  signs,  instead 
of  these  village  symbols, — and  we  shall  both  be 
gainers.  The  history  of  hierarchies  seems  to  show, 
that  all  religious  error  consisted  in  making  the  sym 
bol  too  stark  and  solid,  and,  at  last,  nothing  but  an 
excess  of  the  organ  of  language. 
1  Swedenborg,  of  all  men  in  the  recent  ages,  stands 
eminently  for  the  translator  of  nature  into  thought. 
I  do  not  know  the  man  in  history  to  whom  things 
stood  so  uniformly  for  words.  Before  him  the 
metamorphosis  continually  plays.  Everything  on 
which  his  eye  rests,  obeys  the  impulses  of  moral 
nature.  The  figs  become  grapes  whilst  he  eats  them. 
When  some  of  his  angels  affirmed  a  truth,  the  laurel 
twig  which  they  held  blossomed  in  their  hands.  The 
noise  which,  at  a  distance,  appeared  like  gnashing 
and  thumping,  on  coming  nearer  was  found  to  be  the 
voice  of  disputants.  The  men,  in  one  of  his  visions, 
seen  in  heavenly  light,  appeared  like  dragons,  and 
seemed  in  darkness :  but,  to  each  other,  they  ap 
peared  as  men,  and,  when  the  light  from  heaven  shone 


THE    POET.  39 

into  their  cabin,  they  complained  of  the  darkness, 
and  were  compelled  to  shut  the  window  that  they 
might  see. 

rf  There  was  this  perception  in  him,  which  makes  the 
poet  or  seer,  an  object  of  awe  and  terror,  namely, 
that  the  same  man,  or  society  of  men,  may  wear  one 
aspect  to  themselves  and  their  companions,  and  a  dif 
ferent  aspect  to  higher  intelligences.  Certain 
priests,  whom  he  describes  as  conversing  very  learn 
edly  together,  appeared  to  the  children,  who  were  at 
some  distance,  like  dead  horses :  and  many  the  like 
misappearances.  And  instantly  the  mind  inquires, 
whether  these  fishes  under  the  bridge,  yonder  oxen 
in  the  pasture,  those  dogs  in  the  yard,  are  immutably 
fishes,  oxen,  and  dogs,  or  only  so  appear  to  me,  and 
perchance  to  themselves  appear  unright  men ;  and 
whether  I  appear  as  a  man  to  all  eyes.  The  Bramins 
and  Pythagoras  propounded  the  same  question,  and 
if  any  poet  has  witnessed  the  transformation,  he 
doubtless  found  it  in  harmony  with  various  experi 
ences.  We  have  all  seen  changes  as  considerable  in 
wheat  and  caterpillars.  He  is  the  poet,  and  shall 
draw  us  with  love  and  terror,  who  sees,  through  the 
flowing  vest,  the  firm  nature,  and  «a»  declare  it. 
^  I  l**k  in  vain  for  the  poet  whern  I  describe.  We 
de  not,  with  sufficient  plainness,  or  sufficient  pro- 


40  ESSAY    I. 

foundness,  address  ourselves  to  life,  nor  dare  we 
chaunt  our  own  times  and  social  circumstances.  If 
we  filled  the  day  with  bravery,  we  should  not  shrink 
from  celebrating  it.  Time  and  nature  yield  us  many 
gifts,  but  not  yet  the  timely  man,  the  new  religion, 
the  reconciler,  whom  all  things  await.  Dante's 
praise  is,  that  he  dared  to  write  his  autobiography  in 
jcolossal  cipher,  or  into  universality.  We  have  yet 
/had  no  genius  in  America,  with  tyrannous  eye,  which 
I  knew  the  value  of  our  incomparable  materials,  and 

/  saw,  in  the  barbarism  and  materialism  of  the  times, 
another  carnival  of  the  same  gods  whose  picture  he 
so  much  admires  in  Homer ;  then  in  the  middle  age  ; 
then  in  Calvinism.  Banks  and  tariffs,  the  newspaper 
and  caucus,  methodism  and  unitarianism,  are  flat  and 
dull  to  dull  people,  but  rest  on  the  same  foundations 
of  wonder  as  the  town  of  Troy,  and  the  temple  of 
Delphos,  and  are  as  swiftly  passing  away.  Our  log 
rolling,  our  stumps  and  their  politics,  our  fisheries, 
our  Negroes,  and  Indians,  our  boats,  and  our  repu 
diations,  the  wrath  of  rogues,  and  the  pusillanimity 
of  honest  men,  the  northern  trade,  the  southern 

I  planting,  the  western  clearing,  Oregon,  and  Texas, 
are  yet  unsung.  Yet  America  is  a  poem  in  our  eyes  ; 

\  its  ample  geography  dazzles  the  imagination,  and  it 
will  not  wait  long  for  metres.  If  I  have  not  found 


THE    POET.  41 

that  excellent  combination  of  gifts  in  my  country 
men  which  I  seek,  neither  could  I  aid  myself  to  fix 
the  idea  of  the  poet  by  reading  now  and  then  in 
Chalmers's  collection  of  five  centuries  of  English 
poets.  These  are  wits,  more  than  poets,  though  there 
have  been  poets  among  them.  But  when  we  adhere 
to  the  ideal  of  the  poet,  we  have  our  difficulties  even 
with  Milton  and  Homer.  Milton  is  too  literary,  and 
Homer  too  literal  and  historical. 

But  I  am  not  wise  enough  for  a  national  criticism, 
and  must  use  the  old  largeness  a  little  longer,  to  dis 
charge  my  errand  from  the  muse  to  the  poet  con 
cerning  his  art. 

i  Art  is  the  path  of  the  creator  to  his  work.  The 
paths,  or  methods,  are  ideal  arid  eternal,  though  few 
men  ever  see  them,  not  the  artist  himself  for  years, 
or  for  a  lifetime,  unless  he  come  into  the  conditions. 
The  painter,  the  sculptor,  the  composer,  the  epic 
rhapsodist,  the  orator,  all  partake  one  desire,  namely, 
to  express  themselves  symmetrically  and  abundantly 
not  dwarfishly  and  fragmentarily.  They  found  or  put 
themselves  in  certain  conditions,  as,  the  painter  and 
sculptor  before  some  impressive  human  figures ;  the 
orator,  into  the  assembly  of  the  people;  and  the  . 
others,  in  such  scenes  as  each  has  found  exciting  to 
his  intellect;  and  each  presently  feels  the  new  desire* 


42  ESSAY    I. 

He  hears  a  voice,  he  sees  a  beckoning.  Then  he  is 
apprised,  with  wonder,  what  herds  of  daemons  hem 
,  him  in.  He  can  no  more  rest ;  he  says,  with  the  old 
'  painter,  "  By  God,  it  is  in  me,  and  must  go  forth  of 
me."  He  pursues  a  beauty,  half  seen,  which  flies 
before  him.  The  poet  pours  out  verses  in  every  soli 
tude.  Most  of  the  things  he  says  are  conventional, 
no  doubt ;  but  by  and  by  he  says  something  which  is 
original  and  beautiful.  That  charms  him.  He 
_jwx>uld  say  nothing  else  but  such  things.  In  our  way 
of  talking,  we  say,  '  That  is  yours,  this  is  mine  ; '  but 
the  poet  knows  well  that  it  is  not  his ;  that  it  is  as 
strange  and  beautiful  to  him  as  to  you ;  he  would 
fain  hear  the  like  eloquence  at  length.  Once  having 
tasted  this  immortal  ichor,  he  cannot  have  enough  of 
it,  and,  as  an  admirable  creative  power  exists  in  these 
intellections,  it  is  of  the  last  importance  that  these 
things  get  spoken.  What  a  little  of  all  we  know  is 
said !  What  drops  of  all  the  sea  of  our  science  are 
baled  up  !  and  by  what  accident  it  is  that  these  are 
exposed,  when  so  many  secrets  sleep  in  nature ! 
Hence  the  necessity  of  speech  and  song;  hence  these 
throbs  and  heart-beatings  in  the  orator,  at  the  door 
of  the  assembly,  to  the  end,  namely,  that  thought 
may  be  ejaculated  as  Logos,  or  Word. 
Doubt  not,  O  poet,  but  persist.  Say,  *  It  is  in  me, 


THE    POET.  43 

and  shall  out.'  Stand  there,  baulked  and  dumb, 
stuttering  and  stammering,  hissed  and  hooted,  stand 
and  strive,  until,  at  last,  rage  draw  out  of  thee  that 
dream-power  which  every  night  shows  thee  is  thine 
own  ;  a  power  transcending  all  limit  and  privacy,  and 
by  virtue  of  which  a  man  is  the  conductor  of  the 
whole  river  of  electricity.  Nothing  walks,  or  creeps, 
or  grows,  or  exists,  which  must  not  in  turn  arise  and 
walk  before  him  as  exponent  of  his  meaning.  Comes 
he  to  that  power,  his  genius  is  no  longer  exhaustible. 
All  the  creatures,  by  pairs  and  by  tribes,  pour  into 
his  mind  as  into  a  Noah's  ark,  to  come  forth  again  to 
people  a  new  world.  This  is  like  the  stock  of  air 
for  our  respiration,  or  for  the  combustion  of  our  fire 
place,  not  a  measure  of  gallons,  but  the  entire  at 
mosphere  if  wanted.  And  therefore  the  rich  poets, 
as  Homer,  Chaucer,  Shakspeare,  and  Raphael,  have 
obviously  no  limits  to  their  works,  except  the  limits 
of  their  lifetime,  and  resemble  a  mirror  carried 
through  the  street,  ready  to  render  an  image  of  every 
created  thing. 

"%  O  poet  I  a  new  nobility  is  conferred  in  groves  and 
pastures,  and  not  in  castles,  or  by  the  sword-blade, 
any  longer.  The  conditions  are  hard,  but  equal. 
Thou  shalt  leave  the  world,  and  know  the  muse  only. 
Thou  shalt  not  know  any  longer  the  times,  customs, 


44  ESSAY    I. 

graces,  politics,  or  opinions  of  men,  but  shalt  take 
all  from  the  nause.  For  the  time  of  towns  is  tolled 
from  the  world  by  funereal  chimes,  but  in  nature  the 
universal  hours  are  counted  by  succeeding  tribes  of 
animals  and  plants,  and  by  growth  of  joy  on  joy. 
God  wills  also  that  thou  abdicate  a  manifold  and  du 
plex  life,  and  that  thou  be  content  that  others  speak 
for  thee.  Others  shall  be  thy  gentlemen,  and  shall 
represent  all  courtesy  and  worldy  life  for  thee ; 
others  shall  do  the  great  and  resounding  actions  also. 
Thou  shalt  lie  close  hid  with  nature,  and  canst  not 
be  afforded  to  the  Capitol  or  the  Exchange.  The 
world  is  full  of  renunciations  and  apprenticeships, 
and  this  is  thine :  thou  must  pass  for  a  fool  and  a 
churl  for  a  long  season.  This  is  the  screen  and 
sheath  in  which  Pan  has  protected  his  well-beloved 
flower,  and  thou  shalt  be  known  only  to  thine  own, 
and  they  shall  console  thee  with  tenderest  love.)  And 
thou  shalt  not  be  able  to  rehearse  the  names  of  thy 
friends  in  thy  verse,  for  an  old  shame  before  the 
holy  ideal.  And  this  is  the  reward  :  that  the  ideal 
shall  be  real  to  thee,  and  the  impressions  of  the  actual 
world  shall  fall  like  summer  rain,  copious,  but  not 
troublesome,  to  thy  invulnerable  essence.  Thou 
shalt  have  the  whole  land  for  thy  park  and  manor, 
the  sea  for  thy  bath  and  navigation,  without  tax  and 


THE    POET  45 

without  envy  ;  the  woods  and  the  rivers  thou  shall 
own  ;  and  thou  shalt  possesss  that  wherein  others  are 
only  tenants  and  boarders.  Thou  true  land-lord ! 
sea-lord !  air-lord  !  Wherever  snow  falls,  or  water 
flows,  or  birds  fly,  wherever  day  and  night  meet  in 
twilight,  wherever  the  blue  heaven  is  hung  by  clouds, 
or  sown  with  stars,  wherever  are  forms  with  trans 
parent  boundaries,  wherever  are  outlets  into  celestial 
space,  wherever  is  danger,  and  awe,  and  love,  there 
is  Beauty,  plenteous  as  rain,  shed  for  thee,  and  though 
thou  shouldest  walk  the  world  over,  thou  shalfc  not 
be  able  to  find  a  condition  inopportune  or  ignoble. 


EXPERIENCE. 


THE  lords  of  life,  the  lords  of  life, 
I  saw  them  pass, 
In  their  own  guise, 
Like  and  unlike, 
Portly  and  grim, 
Use  and  Surprise, 
Surface  and  Dream, 
Succession  swift,  and  spectral  Wrong, 
Temperament  without  a  tongue, 
And  the  inventer  of  the  game 
Omnipresent  without  name ;— - 
Some  to  see,  some  to  be  guessed, 
They  marched  from  east  to  west : 
Little  man,  least  of  all, 
Among  the  legs  of  his  guardians  tall, 
Walked  about  with  puzzled  look  : — 
Him  by  the  hand  dear  nature  took; 
Dearest  nature,  strong  and  kind, 
Whispered,  '  Darling,  never  mind  ! 
To-morrow  they  will  wear  another  face, 
The  founder  thou  I  these  are  thy  race ! ' 


ESSAY  II. 
EXPERIENCE. 


WHERE  do  we  find  ourselves?  In  a  series  of 
which  we  do  not  know  the  extremes,  and  believe 
that  it  has  none.  We  wake  and  find  ourselves  on  a 
stair  ;  there  are  stairs  below  us,  which  we  seem  to 
have  ascended;  there  are  stairs  above  us,  many  a 
one,  which  go  upward  and  out  of  sight.  But  the 
Genius  which,  according  to  the  old  belief,  stands  at 
the  door  by  which  we  enter,  and  gives  us  the  lethe 
to  drink,  that  we  may  tell  no  tales,  mixed  the  cup 
too  strongly,  and  we  cannot  shake  off  the  lethargy 
now  at  noon  day.  Sleep  lingers  all  our  lifetime 
about  our  eyes,  as  night  hovers  all  day  in  the  boughs 
of  a  fir-tree.  All  things  swim  and  glitter.  Our  life 
is  not  so  much  threatened  as  our  perception.  Ghost 
like  we  glide  through  nature,  and  should  not  know 
our  place  again.  Did  our  birth  fall  in  some  fit  of  in 
digence  and  frugality  in  nature,  that  she  was  so  spar 
ing  of  her  fire  and  so  liberal  of  her  earth,  that  it  ap- 
4  (49) 


*0  ESSAY    II. 

r>ears  to  us  that  we  lack  the  affirmative  principle, 
and  though  we  have  health  and  reason,  yet  we  have 
no  superfluity  of  spirit  for  new  creation  ?  We  have 
enough  to  live  and  bring  the  year  about,  but  not  an 
ounce  to  impart  or  to  invest.  Ah  that  our  Genius 
were  a  little  more  of  a  genius !  We  are  like  millers 
on  the  lower  levels  of  a  stream,  when  the  factories 
above  them  have  exhausted  the  water.  We  too 
fancy  that  the  upper  people  must  have  raised  their 
dams. 

If  any  of  us  knew  what  we  are  doing,  or  where 
we  are  going,  then  when  we  think  we  best  know ! 
We  do  not  know  to-day  whether  we  are  busy  or  idle. 
In  times  when  we  thought  ourselves  indolent,  we 
have  afterwards  discovered,  that  much  was  accom 
plished,  and  much  was  begun  in  us.  All  our  days 
are  so  unprofitable  while  they  pass,  that  'tis  wonder 
ful  where  or  when  we  ever  got  anything  of  this 
which  we  call  wisdom,  poetry,  virtue.  We  neve* 
got  it  on  any  dated  calendar  day.  Some  heavenly 
days  must  have  been  intercalated  somewhere,  like 
those  that  Hermes  won  with  dice  of  the  Moon,  that 
Osiris  might  be  born.  It  is  said,  all  martyrdoms 
looked  mean  when  they  were  suffered.  Every  ship 
is  a  romantic  object,  except  that  we  sail  in.  Em 
bark,  and  the  romance  quits  our  vessel,  and  hangs  on 


EXPERIENCE.  61 

every  other  sail  in  the  horizon.  Our  life  looks  triv_ 
ial,  and  we  shun  to  record  it.  Men  seem  to  have 
learned  of  the  horizon  the  art  of  perpetual  retreating 
and  reference.  l  Yonder  uplands  are  rich  pasturage, 
and  iny  neighbor  has  fertile  meadow,  but  my  field/ 
says  the  querulous  farmer,  4  only  holds  the  world  to 
gether.'  I  quote  another  man's  saying ;  unluckily, 
that  other  withdraws  himself  in  the  same  way,  and 
quotes  me.  "  'Tis  the  trick  of  nature  thus  to  degrade 
to-day ;  a  good  deal  of  buzz,  and  somewhere  a  result 
slipped  magically  in.  Every  roof  is  agreeable  to  the 
eye,  until  it  is  lifted;  then  we  find  tragedy  and 
moaning  women,  and  hard -eyed  husbands,  and 
deluges  of  lethe,  and  the  men  ask,  4  What's  the 
news  ?  '  as  if  the  old  were  so  bad.  How  many  indi 
viduals  can  we  count  in  society  ?  how  many  actions  ? 
how  many  opinions  ?  So  much  of  our  time  is  prepa 
ration,  so  much  is  routine,  and  so  much  retrospect, 
that  the  pith  of  each  man's  genius  contracts  itself  to 
a  very  few  hours.  The  history  of  literature — take 
the  net  result  of  Tiraboschi,  Warton,  or  Schlegel, — 
is  a  sum  of  very  few  ideas,  and  of  very  few  original 
tales, —  all  the  rest  being  variation  of  these.  So  in 
this  great  society  wide  lying  around  us,  a  critical 
analysis  would  find  very  few  spontaneous  actions. 
It  is  almost  all  custom  and  gross  sense.  There  are 


52  ESSAY    II. 

even  few  opinions,  and  these  seem  organic  in  the 
speakers,  and  do  not  disturb  the  universal  necessity. 
What  opium  is  instilled  into  all  disaster !  It 
shows  formidable  as  we  approach  it,  but  there  is  at 
last  no  rough  rasping  friction,  but  the  most  slippery 
sliding  surfaces.  We  fall  soft  on  a  thought.  Ate 
Dea  is  gentle, 

"  Over  men's  heads  walking  aloft, 
With  tender  feet  treading  so  soft." 

People  grieve  and  bemoan  themselves,  but  it  is  not 
half  so  bad  with  them  as  they  say.  There  are  moods 
in  which  we  court  suffering,  in  the  hope  that  here, 
at  least,  we  shall  find  reality,  sharp  peaks  and  edges 
of  truth.  But  it  turns  out  to  be  scene-painting  and 
counterfeit.  The  only  thing  grief  has  taught  me,  is 
to  know  how  shallow  it  is.  That,  like  all  the  rest, 
plays  about  the  surface,  and  never  introduces  me 
into  the  reality,  for  contact  with  which,  we  would 
even  pay  the  costly  price  of  sons  and  lovers.  Was 
it  Boscovich  who  found  out  that  bodies  never  come 
in  contact  ?  Well,  souls  never  touch  their  objects* 
An  innavigable  sea  washes  with  silent  waves  between 
us  and  the  things  we  aim  at  and  converse  with. 
Grief  too  will  make  us  idealists.  In  the  death  oi 
my  son,  now  more  than  two  years  ago,  I  seem  tc 


BXPEKIENCBc  58 

have  lost  a  beautiful  estate, — no  aiore.  I  cannot 
get  it  nearer  to  me.  If  to-rnorrow  I  should  be  in 
formed  of  the  bankruptcy  of  my  principal  debtors,, 
the  loss  of  my  property  would  be  a  great  inconven 
ience  to  me,  perhaps,  for  many  years  ;  but  it  would 
leave  me  as  it  found  me, — neither  better  nor  worse. 
So  is  it  with  this  calamity ;  it  does  not  touch  me : 
some  thing  which  I  fancied  was  a  part  of  me,  which 
could  not  be  torn  away  without  tearing  me,  nor  en 
larged  without  enriching  me,  falls  off  from  me,  and 
leaves  no  scar.  It  was  caducous.  I  grieve  that  grief 
can  teach  me  nothing,  nor  carry  me  one  step  into 
real  nature.  The  Indian  who  was  laid  under  a 
curse,  that  the  wind  should  not  blow  on  him,  nor 
water  flow  to  him,  nor  fire  burn  him,  is  a  type  of  us 
all.  The  dearest  events  are  summer-rain,  and  we 
the  Para  coats  that  shed  every  drop.  Nothing  is 
left  us  now  but  death.  We  look  to  that  with  a  grim 
satisfaction,  saying,  there  at  least  is  reality  that  will 
not  dodge  us. 

I  take  this  evanescence  and  lubricity  of  all  objects, 
which  lets  them  slip  through  our  fingers  then  when 
we  clutch  hardest,  to  be  the  most  unhandsome  part 
of  our  condition.  Nature  does  not  like  to  be  ob 
served,  and  likes  that  we  should  be  her  fools  and 
playmates.  We  may  have  the  sphere  for  our  cricket* 


64  ESSAY   II. 

ball,  but  not  a  berry  for  our  philosophy.  Direct 
strokes  she  never  gave  us  power  to  make  ;  all  our 
blows  glance,  all  our  hits  are  accidents.  Our  rela 
tions  to  each  other  are  oblique  and  casual. 

Dream  delivers  us  to  dream,  and  there  is  no  end 
to  illusion.  Life  is  a  train  of  moods  like  a  string  of 
beads,  and  as  we  pass  through  them,  they  prove  to 
be  many-colored  lenses  which  paint  the  world  their 
own  hue,  and  each  shows  only  what  lies  in  its  focus. 
From  the  mountain  you  see  the  mountain.  We  ani 
mate  what  we  can,  and  we  see  only  what  we  animate. 
Nature  and  books  belong  to  the  eyes  that  see  them. 
It  depends  on  the  mood  of  the  man,  whether  he 
shall  see  the  sunset  or  the  fine  poem.  There  are  al 
ways  sunsets,  and  there  is  always  genius ;  but  only 
a  few  hours  so  serene  that  we  can  relish  nature  or 
criticism.  The  more  or  less  depends  on  structure  or 
temperament.  Temperament  is  the  iron  wire  on 
which  the  beads  are  strung.  Of  what  use  is  fortune 
or  talent  to  a  cold  and  defective  nature  ?  Who  cares 
what  sensibility  or  discrimination  a  man  has  at  some 
time  shown,  if  he  falls  asleep  in  his  chair  ?  or  if  he 
laugh  and  giggle  ?  or  if  he  apologize  ?  or  is  affected 
with  egotism  ?  or  thinks  of  his  dollar  ?  or  cannot  go 
by  food  ?  or  has  gotten  a  child  in  his  boyhood  ?  Of 


EXPERIENCE.  55 

what  use  is  genius,  if  the  organ  is  too  convex  or  too 
concave,  and  cannot  find  a  focal  distance  within  the 
actual  horizon  of  human  life  ?  Of  what  use,  if  the 
brain  is  too  cold  or  too  hot,  and  the  man  does  not 
care  enough  for  results,  to  stimulate  him  to  experi 
ment,  and  hold  him  up  in  it  ?  or  if  the  web  is  too 
finely  woven,  too  irritable  by  pleasure  and  pain,  so 
that  life  stagnates  from  too  much  reception,  without 
due  outlet  ?  Of  what  use  to  make  heroic  vows  of 
amendment,  if  the  same  old  law-breaker  is  to  keep 
them  ?  What  cheer  can  the  religious  sentiment 
yield,  when  that  is  suspected  to  be  secretly  depend 
ent  on  the  seasons  of  the  year,  and  the  state  of  the 
blood  ?  I  knew  a  witty  physician  who  found  theol 
ogy  in  the  biliary  duct,  and  used  to  affirm  that  if 
there  was  disease  in  the  liver,  the  man  became  a 
Calvinist,  and  if  that  organ  was  sound,  he  became  a 
Unitarian.  Very  mortifying  is  the  reluctant  experi 
ence  that  some  unfriendly  excess  or  imbecility  neu 
tralizes  the  promise  of  genius.  We  see  young  men 
who  owe  us  a  new  world,  so  readily  and  lavishly 
they  promise,  but  they  never  acquit  the  debt ;  they 
die  young  and  dodge  the  account :  or  if  they  live, 
they  lose  themselves  in  the  crowd. 

Temperament  also  enters  fully  into  the  system  of 
illusions,  and  shuts  us  in  a  prison  of  glass  which  we 


56  ESSAY  II. 

cannot  see.  There  is  an  optical  illusion  about  every 
person  we  meet.  In  truth,  they  are  all  creatures  of 
given  temperament,  which  will  appear  in  a  given 
character,  whose  boundaries  they  will  never  pass: 
but  we  look  at  them,  they  seem  alive,  and  we  pre 
sume  there  is  impulse  in  them.  In  the  moment  it 
seems  impulse;  in  the  year,  in  the  lifetime,  it  turns 
out  to  be  a  certain  uniform  tune  which  the  revolving 
barrel  of  the  music-box  must  play.  Men  resist  the 
conclusion  in  the  morning,  but  adopt  it  as  the  even 
ing  wears  on,  that  temper  prevails  over  everything 
of  time,  place,  and  condition,  and  is  inconsumable  in 
the  flames  of  religion.  Some  modifications  the  moral 
sentiment  avails  to  impose,  but  the  individual  texture 
holds  its  dominion,  if  not  to  bias  the  moral  judg 
ments,  yet  to  fix  the  measure  of  activity  and  of  en 
joyment. 

I  thus  express  the  law  as  it  is  read  from  the  plat 
form  of  ordinary  life,  but  must  not  leave  it  without 
noticing  the  capital  exception.  For  temperament  is 
a  power  which  no  man  willingly  hears  any  one  praise 
but  himself.  On  the  platform  of  physics,  we  cannot 
resist  the  contracting  influences  of  so-called  science. 
Temperament  puts  all  divinity  to  rout.  I  know  the 
mental  proclivity  of  physicians.  I  hear  the  chuckle 
of  the  phrenologists.  Theoretic  kidnappers  and 


EXPEBIENCE.  67 

slave-drivers,  they  esteem  each  mail  the  victim  of 
another,  who  winds  him  round  his  finger  by  knowing 
the  law  of  his  being,  and  by  such  cheap  signboards 
as  the  color  of  his  beard,  or  the  slope  of  his  occiput, 
reads  the  inventory  of  his  fortunes  and  character. 
The  grossest  ignorance  does  not  disgust  like  this  im 
pudent  knowingness.  The  physicians  say,  they  are 
not  materialists  ;  but  they  are  : — Spirit  is  matter  re" 
duced  to  an  extreme  thinness  :  O  so  thin  ! — But  the 
definition  of  spiritual  should  be,  that  which  is  its  own 
evidence.  What  notions  do  they  attach  to  love  I 
what  to  religion  !  One  would  not  willingly  pro 
nounce  these  words  in  their  hearing,  and  give  them 
the  occasion  to  profane  them.  I  saw  a  gracious  gen 
tleman  who  adapts  his  conversation  to  the  form  of 
the  head  of  the  man  he  talks  with !  I  had  fancied 
that  the  value  of  life  lay  in  its  inscrutable  possibili 
ties  ;  in  the  fact  that  I  never  know,  in  addressing 
myself  to  a  new  individual,  what  may  befall  me.  I 
carry  the  keys  of  my  castle  in  my  hand,  ready  to 
throw  them  at  the  feet  of  my  lord,  whenever  and  in 
what  disguise  soever  he  shall  appear.  I  know  he  is 
in  the  neighborhood  hidden  among  vagabonds.  Shall 
I  preclude  my  future,  by  taking  a  high  seat,  arid 
kindly  adapting  my  conversation  to  the  shape  of 
Jieads  ?  When  I  come  to  that,  the  doctors  shall  buy 


68  ESSAY  n. 

me  for  a  cent. '  But,  sir,  medical  history  ;  the  re 
port  to  the  Institute  ;  the  proven  facts  ! ' — I  distrust 
the  facts  and  the  inferences.  Temperament  is  the 
Veto  or  limitation-power  in  the  constitution,  very 
justly  applied  to  restrain  an  opposite  excess  in  the 
constitution,  but  absurdly  offered  as  a  bar  to  original 
equity.  When  virtue  is  in  presence,  all  subordinate 
powers  sleep.  On  its  own  level,  or  in  view  of  na 
ture,  temperament  is  final.  I  see  not,  if  one  be  once 
caught  in  this  trap  of  so-called  sciences,  any  escape 
for  the  man  from  the  links  of  the  chain  of  physical 
necessity.  Given  such  an  embryo,  such  a  history 
must  follow.  On  this  platform,  one  lives  in  a  sty  of 
sensualism,  and  would  soon  come  to  suicide.  But  it 
is  impossible  that  the  creative  power  should  exclude 
itself.  Into  every  intelligence  there  is  a  door  which 
is  never  closed,  through  which  the  creator  passes. 
The  intellect,  seeker  of  absolute  truth,  or  the  heart, 
lover  of  absolute  good,  intervenes  for  our  succor,  and 
at  one  whisper  of  these  high  powers,  we  awake  from 
ineffectual  struggles  with  this  nightmare.  We  hurl 
it  into  its  own  hell,  and  cannot  again  contract  our 
selves  to  so  base  a  state. 

The  secret  of  the  illusoriness  is  in  the  necessity 
of  a  succession  of  moods  or  objects.    Gladly  we 


EXPERIENCE  59 

would  anchor,  but  the  anchorage  is  quicksand.  This 
onward  trick  of  nature  is  too  strong  for  us  :  Pero  si 
"nuove.  When,  at  night,  I  look  at  the  moon  and 
stars,  I  seem  stationary,  and  they  to  hurry.  OUT 
love  of  the  real  draws  us  to  permanence,  but  health 
of  body  consists  in  circulation,  and  sanity  of  mind  in 
variety  or  facility  of  association.  We  need  change 
of  objects.  Dedication  to  one  thought  is  quickly 
odious.  We  house  with  the  insane,  and  must  humor 
them ;  then  conversation  dies  out.  Once  T  took 
such  delight  in  Montaigne,  that  I  thought  I  should 
not  need  any  other  book ;  before  that,  in  Shakspeare ; 
then  in  Plutarch  ;  then  in  Plotinus  ;  at  one  time  in 
Bacon  ;  afterwards  in  Goethe  ;  even  in  Bettine  ;  but 
now  I  turn  the  pages  of  either  of  them  languidly, 
whilst  I  still  cherish  their  genius.  So  with  pictures  ; 
each  will  bear  an  emphasis  of  attention  once,  which 
it  cannot  retain,  though  we  fain  would  continue  to 
be  pleased  in  that  manner.  How  strongly  I  have 
felt  of  pictures,  that  when  you  have  seen  one  well, 
you  must  take  your  leave  of  it ;  you  shall  never  see 
it  again.  I  have  had  good  lessons  from  pictures, 
which  I  have  since  seen  without  emotion  or  remark. 
A  deduction  must  be  made  from  the  opinion,  which 
even  the  wise  express  of  a  new  book  or  occurrence. 
Their  opinion  gives  me  tidings  of  their  mood,  and 


60  ESSAY  n. 

some  vague  guess  at  the  new  fact,  but  is  nowise  to 
be  trusted  as  the  lasting  relation  between  that  intel 
lect  and  that  thing.  The  child  asks,  'Mamma,  why 
don't  I  like  the  story  as  well  as  when  you  told  it  me 
yesterday  ?  '  Alas,  child,  it  is  even  so  with  the  old 
est  cherubim  of  knowledge.  But  will  it  answer  thy 
question  to  say,  Because  thou  wert  born  to  a  whole, 
and  this  story  is  a  particular  ?  The  reason  of  the 
pain  this  discovery  causes  us  (and  we  make  it  late 
in  respect  to  works  of  art  and  intellect),  is  the  plaint 
of  tragedy  which  murmurs  from  it  in  regard  to  per 
sons,  to  friendship  and  love. 

That  immobility  and  absence  of  elasticity  which 
we  find  in  the  arts,  we  find  with  more  pain  in  the 
artist.  There  is  no  power  of  expansion  in  men.  Our 
friends  early  appear  to  us  as  representatives  of  cer 
tain  ideas,  which  they  never  pass  or  exceed.  They 
stand  on  the  brink  of  the  ocean  of  thought  and 
power,  but  they  never  take  the  single  step  that 
would  bring  them  there.  A  man  is  like  a  bit  of 
Labrador  spar,  which  has  no  lustre  as  you  turn  it  in 
your  hand,  until  you  come  to  a  particular  angle  ; 
then  it  shows  deep  and  beautiful  colors.  There  is 
no  adaptation  or  universal  applicability  in  men,  but 
each  has  his  special  talent,  and  the  mastery  of  suc 
cessful  men  consists  in  adroitly  keeping  themselves 


EXPERIENCE.  61 

where  and  when  that  turn  shall  be  oftenest  to  be 
practised.  We  do  what  we  must,  and  call  it  by  the 
best  names  we  can,  and  would  fain  have  the  praise 
of  having  intended  the  result  which  ensues.  I  can 
not  recall  any  form  of  man  who  is  not  superfluous 
sometimes.  But  is  not  this  pitiful  ?  Life  is  not 
worth  the  taking,  to  do  tricks  in. 

Of  course,  it  needs  the  whole  society,  to  give  the 
symmetry  we  seek.  The  parti-colored  wheel  must 
revolve  very  fast  to  appear  white.  Something  is 
learned  too  by  conversing  with  so  much  folly  and 
defect.  In  fine,  whoever  loses,  we  are  always  of  the 
gaining  party.  Divinity  is  behind  our  failures  and 
follies  also.  The  plays  of  children  are  nonsense,  but 
very  educated  nonsense.  So  it  is  with  the  largest 
and  solemnest  things,  with  commerce,  government, 
church,  marriage,  and  so  with  the  history  of  every 
man's  bread,  and  the  ways  by  which  he  is  to  come 
by  it.  Like  a  bird  which  alights  nowhere,  but  hops 
perpetually  from  bough  to  bough,  is  the  Power 
which  abides  in  no  man  and  in  no  woman,  but  for  a 
moment  speaks  from  this  one,  and  for  another  mo« 
ment  from  that  one. 

But  what  help  from  these  fineries  or  pedantries  ? 
What   help   from   thought?    Life  is  not  dialectics. 


62  ESSAY    II. 

We,  I  think,  in  these  times,  have  had  lessons  enough 
of  the  futility  of  criticism.  Our  young  people  have 
thought  and  written  much  on  labor  and  reform,  and 
for  all  that  they  have  written,  neither  the  world  nor 
themselves  have  got  on  a  step.  Intellectual  tasting 
of  life  will  not  supersede  muscular  activity.  If  a 
man  should  consider  the  nicety  of  the  passage  of  a 
piece  of  bread  down  his  throat,  he  would  starve.  At 
Education-Farm,  the  noblest  theory  of  life  sat  on  the 
noblest  figures  of  young  men  and  maidens,  quite 
powerless  and  melancholy.  It  would  not  rake  or 
pitch  a  ton  of  hay ;  it  would  not  rub  down  a  horse ; 
and  the  men  and  maidens  it  left  pale  and  hungry. 
A  political  orator  wittily  compared  our  party  prom 
ises  to  western  roads,  which  opened  stately  enough, 
with  planted  trees  on  either  side,  to  tempt  the  trav 
eler,  but  soon  became  narrow  and  narrower,  and 
ended  in  a  squirrel-track,  and  ran  up  a  tree.  So  does 
culture  with  us ;  it  ends  in  head-ache.  Unspeakably 
sad  and  barren  does  life  look  to  those,  who  a  few 
months  ago  were  dazzled  with  the  splendor  of  the 
promise  of  the  times.  "  There  is  now  no  longer  any 
right  course  of  action,  nor  any  self-devotion  left 
among  the  Iranis."  Objections  and  criticism  we 
have  had  our  fill  of.  There  are  objections  to  every 
course  of  life  and  action,  and  the  practical  wisdom 


EXPERIENCE.  63 

infers  an  indifferency,  from  the  omnipresence  of  ob 
jection.  The  whole  frame  of  things  preaches  indif 
ferency.  Do  not  craze  yourself  with  thinking,  but 
go  about  your  business  anywhere.  Life  is  not  intel 
lectual  or  critical,  but  sturdy.  Its  chief  good  is  for 
well-mixed  people  who  can  enjoy  what  they  find, 
without  question.  Nature  hates  peeping,  and  our 
mothers  speak  her  very  sense  when  they  say,  "  Chil 
dren,  eat  your  victuals,  and  say  no  more  of  it."  To 
fill  the  hour, — that  is  happiness ;  to  fill  the  hour,  and 
leave  no  crevice  for  a  repentance  or  an  approval. 
We  live  amid  surfaces,  and  the  true  art  of  life  is  to 
skate  well  on  them.  Under  the  oldest  mouldiest 
conventions,  a  man  of  native  force  prospers  just  as 
well  as  in  the  newest  world,  and  that  by  skill  of 
handling  and  treatment.  He  can  take  hold  any 
where.  Life  itself  is  a  mixture  of  power  and  form, 
and  will  not  bear  the  least  excess  of  either.  To  fin 
ish  the  moment,  to  find  the  journey's  end  in  every 
step  of  the  road,  to  live  the  greatest  number  of  good 
hours,  is  wisdom.  It  is  not  the  part  of  men,  but  of 
fanatics,  or  of  mathematicians,  if  you  will,  to  say, 
that,  the  shortness  of  life  considered,  it  is  not  worth 
caring  whether  for  so  short  a  duration  we  were 
sprawling  in  want,  or  sitting  high.  Since  our  office 
is  with  moments,  let  us  husband  them.  Five  minutes 


G4  ESSAY   II. 

of  to-day  are  worth  as  much  to  me,  as  five  minutes 
in  the  next  millennium.  Let  us  be  poised,  and  wise, 
and  our  own,  to-day.  Let  us  treat  the  men  and 
women  well :  treat  them  as  if  they  were  real :  per 
haps  they  are.  Men  live  in  their  fancy,  like  drunk 
ards  whose  hands  are  too  soft  and  tremulous  for  sue- 
cessful  labor.  It  is  a  tempest  of  fancies,  and  the 
only  ballast  I  know,  is  a  respect  to  the  present  hour. 
Without  any  shadow  of  doubt,  amidst  this  vertigo  of 
shows  and  politics,  I  settle  myself  ever  the  firmer  in 
the  creed,  that  we  should  not  postpone  and  refer  and 
wish,  but  do  broad  justice  where  we  are,  by  whomso 
ever  we  deal  with,  accepting  our  actual  companions 
and  circumstances,  however  humble  or  odious,  as  the 
mystic  officials  to  whom  the  universe  has  delegated 
its  whole  pleasure  for  us.  If  these  are  mean  and 
malignant,  their  contentment,  which  is  the  last  vic 
tory  of  justice,  is  a  more  satisfying  echo  to  the  heart, 
than  the  voice  of  poets  and  the  casual  sympathy  of 
admirable  persons.  I  think  that  however  a  thought 
ful  man  may  suffer  from  the  defects  and  absurdities 
of  his  company,  he  cannot  without  affectation  deny 
to  any  set  of  men  and  women,  a  sensibility  to  ex 
traordinary  merit.  The  coarse  and  frivolous  have  an 
instinct  of  superiority,  if  they  have  not  a  sympathy, 


EXPERIENCE.  65 

and  honor  it  in  their  blind  capricious  way  with  sin 
cere  homage. 

The  fine  young  people  despise  life,  but  in  me,  and 
in  such  as  with  me  are  free  from  dyspepsia,  and  to 
whom  a  day  is  a  sound  and  solid  good,  it  is  a  great 
excess  of  politeness  to  look  scornful  and  to  cry  for 
company.  I  am  grown  by  sympathy  a  little  eager 
and  sentimental,  but  leave  me  alone,  and  I  should 
relish  every  hour  and  what  it  brought  me,  the  pot- 
luck  of  the  day,  as  heartily  as  the  oldest  gossip  in  the 
bar-room.  I  am  thankful  for  small  mercies.  I  com 
pared  notes  with  one  of  my  friends  who  expects 
everything  of  the  universe,  and  is  disappointed  when 
anything  is  less  than  the  best,  and  I  found  that  I  be 
gin  at  the  other  extreme,  expecting  nothing,  and  am 
always  full  of  thanks  for  moderate  goods.  I  accept 
the  clangor  and  jangle  of  contrary  tendencies.  I 
find  my  account  in  sots  and  bores  also.  They  give  a 
reality  to  the  circumjacent  picture,  which  such  9 
vanishing  meteorous  appearance  can  ill  spare.  In  the 
morning  I  awake,  and  find  the  old  world,  wife,  babes, 
and  mother,  Concord  and  Boston,  the  dear  old  spir 
itual  world,  and  even  the  dear  old  devil  not  far  off 
If  we  will  take  the  good  we  find,  asking  no  ques 
tions,  we  shall  have  heaping  measures.  The  great 
gifts  are  not  got  by  analysis.  Everything  good  is  on 
6 


66  ESSAY  n. 

the  highway.  The  middle  region  of  our  being  is  the 
temperate  zone.  We  may  climb  into  the  thin  and 
cold  realm  of  pure  geometry  and  lifeless  science,  or 
sink  into  that  of  sensation.  Between  these  extremes 
is  the  equator  of  life,  of  thought,  of  spirit,  of  poetry, 
• — a  narrow  belt.  Moreover,  in  popular  experience, 
everything  good  is  on  the  highway.  A  collector 
peeps  into  all  the  picture-shops  of  Europe,  for  a  land 
scape  of  Poussin,  a  crayon-sketch  of  Salvator;  but 
the  Transfiguration,  the  Last  Judgment,  the  Com 
munion  of  St.  Jerome,  and  what  are  as  transcendent 
as  these,  are  on  the  walls  of  the  Vatican,  the  Uffizii, 
or  the  Louvre,  where  every  footman  may  see  them ; 
to  say  nothing  of  nature's  pictures  in  every  street,  of 
sunsets  and  sunrises  every  day,  and  the  sculpture  of 
the  human  body  never  absent.  A  collector  recently 
bought  at  public  auction,  in  London,  for  one  hundred 
and  fifty-seven  guineas,  an  autograph  of  Shakspeare : 
but  for  nothing  a  school-boy  can  read  Hamlet,  and 
can  detect  secrets  of  highest  concernment  yet  un 
published  therein.  I  think  I  will  never  read  any 
but  the  commonest  books, — the  Bible,  Homer,  Dante, 
Shakspeare,  and  Milton.  Then  we  are  impatient  of 
so  public  a  life  and  planet,  and  run  hither  and  thither 
for  nooks  and  secrets.  The  imagination  delights  in 
the  woodcraft  of  Indians,  trappers,  and  bee-hunters* 


EXPERIENCE.  67 

We  fancy  that  we  are  strangers,  and  not  so  inti 
mately  domesticated  in  the  planet  as  the  wild  man, 
and  the  wild  beast  and  bird.  But  the  exclusion 
reaches  them  also  ;  reaches  the  climbing,  flying,  glid 
ing,  feathered  and  four-footed  man.  Fox  and  wood- 
chuck,  hawk  and  snipe,  and  bittern,  when  nearly 
seen,  have  no  more  root  in  the  deep  world  than  man, 
and  are  just  such  superficial  tenants  of  the  globe. 
Then  the  new  molecular  philosophy  shows  astronom 
ical  interspaces  betwixt  atom  and  atom,  shows  that 
the  world  is  all  outside :  it  has  no  inside. 

The  mid-world  is  best.  Nature,  as  we  know  her, 
is  no  saint.  The  lights  of  the  church,  the  ascetics, 
Gentoos  and  Grahamites,  she  does  not  distinguish  by 
any  favor.  She  comes  eating  and  drinking  and  sin 
ning.  Her  darlings,  the  great,  the  strong,  the  beauti 
ful,  are  not  children  of  our  law,  do  not  come  out  of 
the  Sunday  School,  nor  weigh  their  food,  nor  punc 
tually  keep  the  commandments.  If  we  will  be  strong 
with  her  strength,  we  must  not  harbor  such  discon 
solate  consciences,  borrowed  too  from  the  consciences 
of  other  nations.  We  must  set  up  the  strong  pres 
ent  tense  against  all  the  rumors  of  wrath,  past  or  to 
come.  So  many  things  are  unsettled  which  it  is  of 
the  first  importance  to  settle, — and,  pending  their  set 
tlement,  we  will  do  as  we  do.  Whilst  the  debate  goes 


68  ESSAY  n. 

forward  on  the  equity  of  commerce,  and  will  not  be 
closed  for  a  century  or  two,  New  and  Old  England 
may  keep  shop.  Law  of  copyright  and  international 
copyright  is  to  be  discussed,  and,  in  the  interim,  we 
will  sell  our  books  for  the  most  we  can.  Expediency 
of  literature,  reason  of  literature,  lawfulness  of  writ' 
ing  down  a  thought,  is  questioned;  much  is  to  say  on 
both  sides,  and,  while  the  fight  waxes  hot,  thou, 
dearest  scholar,  stick  to  thy  foolish  task,  add  a  line 
every  hour,  and  between  whiles  add  a  line.  Right 
to  hold  land,  right  of  property,  is  disputed,  and  the 
conventions  convene,  and  before  the  vote  is  taken, 
dig  away  in  your  garden,  and  spend  your  earnings  aa 
a  waif  or  godsend  to  all  serene  and  beautiful  pur 
poses.  Life  itself  is  a  bubble  and  a  skepticism, 
and  a  sleep  within  a  sleep.  Grant  it,  and  as  much 
more  as  they  will, — but  thou,  God's  darling !  heed 
thy  private  dream :  thou  wilt  not  be  missed  in  the 
scorning  and  skepticism  :  there  are  enough  of  them  : 
stay  there  in  thy  closet,  and  toil,  until  the  rest  are 
agreed  what  to  do  about  it.  Thy  sickness,  they  say, 
and  thy  puny  habit,  require  that  thou  do  this  01 
avoid  that,  but  know  that  thy  life  is  a  flitting  state, 
a  tent  for  a  night,  and  do  thou,  sick  or  well,  finish 
that  stint.  Thou  art  sick,  but  shalt  not  be  worse. 


and  the  universe,  which  holds  thee  dear,  shall  be  the 
better. 

Human  life  is  made  up  of  the  two  elements,  powei 
and  form,  and  the  proportion  must  be  invariably 
kept,  if  we  would  have  it  sweet  and  sound.  Each  of 
these  elements  in  excess  makes  a  mischief  as  hurtful 
as  its  defect.  Everything  runs  to  excess :  every 
good  quality  is  noxious,  if  unmixed,  and,  to  carry 
the  danger  to  the  edge  of  ruin,  nature  causes  each 
man's  peculiarity  to  superabound.  Here,  among  the 
the  farms,  we  adduce  the  scholars  as  examples  of 
this  treachery.  They  are  nature's  victims  of  expres 
sion.  You  who  see  the  artist,  the  orator,  the  poet, 
too  near,  and  find  their  life  no  more  excellent  than 
that  of  mechanics  or  farmers,  and  themselves  victims 
of  partiality,  very  hollow  and  haggard,  and  pro 
nounce  them  failures, — not  heroes,  but  quacks, — con 
clude  very  reasonably,  that  these  arts  are  not  for  man, 
but  are  disease.  Yet  nature  will  not  bear  you  out. 
Irresistible  nature  made  men  such,  and  makes  legions 
more  of  such,  every  day.  You  love  the  boy  reading 
in  a  book,  gazing  at  a  drawing,  or  a  cast :  yet  what 
are  these  millions  who  read  and  behold,  but  incipient 
writers  and  sculptors?  Add  a  little  more  of  that 
quality  which  now  reads  and  sees,  and  they  will 
seize  the  pen  and  chisel.  And  if  one  remembers 


70  ESSAY  n. 

how  innocently  he  began  to  be  an  artist,  he  perceives 
that  nature  joined  with  his  enemy.  A  man  is  a 
golden  impossibility.  The  line  he  must  walk  is  a 
hair's  breadth.  The  wise  through  excess  of  wisdom 
is  made  a  fool. 

How  easily,  if  fate  would  suffer  it,  we  might  keep 
forever  these  beautiful  limits,  and  adjust  ourselves, 
once  for  all,  to  the  perfect  calculation  of  the  king 
dom  of  known  cause  and  effect.  In  the  street  and 
in  the  newspapers,  life  appears  so  plain  a  business, 
that  manly  resolution  and  adherence  to  the  multi 
plication-table  through  all  weathers,  will  insure  suc 
cess.  But  ah!  presently  comes  a  day,  or  is  it  only  a 
half-hoar,  with  its  angel-whispering, — which  discom 
fits  the  conclusions  of  nations  and  of  years!  To 
morrow  again,  everything  looks  real  and  angular, 
the  habitual  standards  are  reinstated,  common  sense 
is  as  rare  as  genius, — is  the  basis  of  genius,  and  ex 
perience  is  hands  and  feet  to  every  enterprise ; — and 
yet,  he  who  should  do  his  business  on  this  under 
standing,  would  be  quickly  bankrupt.  Power  keeps 
quite  another  road  than  the  turnpikes  of  choice  and 
will,  namely,  the  subterranean  and  invisible  tunnels 
and  channels  of  life.  It  is  ridiculous  that  we  are 
diplomatists,  and  doctors,  and  considerate  people  ? 


EXPERIENCE.  71 

there  are  no  dupes  like  these.  Life  is  a  series  of  sur 
prises,  and  would  not  be  worth  taking  or  keeping,  if 
it  were  not.  God  delights  to  isolate  us  every  day, 
and  hide  from  us  the  past  and  the  future.  We  would 
look  about  as,  but  with  grand  politeness  he  draws 
down  before  us  an  impenetrable  screen  of  purest  sky, 
and  another  behind  us  of  purest  sky.  '  You  will  not 
remember,'  he  seems  to  say,  c  and  you  will  not  ex 
pect.'  All  good  conversation,  manners,  and  action, 
come  from  spontaneity  which  forgets  usages,  and 
makes  the  moment  great.  Nature  hates  calculators ; 
her  methods  are  saltatory  and  impulsive.  Man  lives 
by  pulses  ;  our  organic  movements  are  such;  and  the 
chemical  and  ethereal  agents  are  undulatory  and  al 
ternate  ;  and  the  mind  goes  antagonizing  on, 
and  never  prospers  but  by  fits.  We  thrive  by  casu 
alties.  Our  chief  experiences  have  been  casual.  The 
most  attractive  class  of  people  are  those  who  are 
powerful  obliquely,  and  not  by  the  direct  stroke : 
men  of  genius,  but  not  yet  accredited :  one  gets  the 
cheer  of  their  light,  without  paying  too  great  a  tax. 
Theirs  is  the  beauty  of  the  bird,  or  the  morning 
light,  and  not  of  art.  In  the  thought  of  genius  there 
is  always  a  surprise  ;  and  the  moral  sentiment  is  well 
called  "  the  newness,"  for  it  is  never  other  ;  as  new 
to  the  oldest  intelligence  as  to  the  young  child,— 


72  ESSAY  II, 

"the  kingdom  that  cometh  without  observation," 
In  like  manner,  from  practical  success,  there  must  not 
be  too  much  design.  A  man  will  not  be  observed  in 
doing  that  which  he  can  do  best.  There  is  a  certain 
magic  about  his  properest  action,  which  stupefies 
your  powers  of  observation,  so  that  though  it  is  done 
before  you,  you  wist  not  of  it.  The  art  of  life  has  a 
prudency,  and  will  not  be  exposed.  Every  man  is  an 
impossibility,  until  he  is  born;  every  thing  impos 
sible,  until  we  see  a  success.  The  ardors  of  piety 
agree  at  last  with  the  coldest  skepticism, — that 
nothing  is  of  us  or  our  works, — that  all  is  of  God. 
Nature  will  not  spare  us  the  smallest  leaf  of  laurel. 
All  writing  comes  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  all  doing 
and  having.  I  would  gladly  be  moral,  and  keep  due 
metes  and  bounds,  which  I  dearly  love,  and  allow 
the  most  to  the  will  of  man,  but  I  have  set  my  heart 
on  honesty  in  this  chapter,  and  I  can  see  nothing  at 
last,  in  success  or  failure,  than  more  or  less  of  vital 
force  supplied  from  the  Eternal.  The  results  of  life 
are  uncalculated  and  uncalculable.  The  years  teach 
much  which  the  days  never  know.  The  persons  who 
compose  our  company,  converse,  and  come  and  go, 
and  design  and  execute  many  things,  and  somewhat 
comes  of  it  all,  but  an  unlocked  for  result.  The  in- 
iividual  is  always  mistaken.  He  designed  many 


EXPEDIENCE.  73 

things,  and  drew  in  other  persons  as  coadjutors,  quar 
relled  with  some  or  all,  blundered  much,  and  some 
thing  is  done;  all  are  a  little  advanced,  but  the  in 
dividual  k  always  mistaken.  It  turns  out  somewhat 
uew,  and  very  unlike  what  he  promised  himself. 

The  ancients,  struck  with  this  irreducibleness  of 
the  elements  of  human  life  to  calculation,  exalted 
Chance  into  a  divinity,  but  that  is  to  stay  too  long 
at  the  spark, —which  glitters  truly  at  one  point, — 
but  the  universe  is  warm  with  the  latency  of  the 
same  fire.  The  miracle  of  life  which  will  not  be 
expounded,  but  will  remain  a  miracle,  introduces  a 
new  element.  In  the  growth  of  the  embryo,  Sir 
Everard  Home,  I  think,  noticed  that  the  evolution 
was  not  from  one  central  point,  but  co-active  from 
three  or  more  points.  Life  has  no  memory.  That 
which  proceeds  in  succession  might  be  remembered, 
but  that  which  is  co-existent,  or  ejaculated  from  a 
deeper  cause,  as  yet  far  from  being  conscious,  knows 
not  its  own  tendency.  So  it  is  with  us,  now  skepti- 
cal,  or  without  unit}7-,  because  immersed  informs  and 
effects  all  seeming  to  be  of  equal  yet  hostile  value, 
and  now  religious,  whilst  in  the  reception  of  spirit* 
ual  law.  Bear  with  these  distractions,  with  this 
coetaneous  growth  of  the  parts:  they  will  one  day 


?4  ESSAY  n. 

be  members,  and  obey  one  will.  On  that  one  will,  on 
that  secret  cause,  they  nail  our  attention  and  hope. 
Life  is  hereby  melted  into  an  expectation  or  a  re* 
ligion.  Underneath  the  inharmonious  and  trivial 
particulars,  is  a  musical  perfection,  the  Ideal  journey 
ing  always  with  us,  the  heaven  without  rent  or 
seam.  Do  but  observe  the  mode  of  our  illumination. 
When  I  converse  with  a  profound  mind,  or  if  at  any 
time  being  alone  I  have  good  thoughts,  I  do  not  at 
once  arrive  at  satisfactions,  as  when,  being  thirsty,  I 
drink  water,  or  go  to  the  fire,  being  cold:  no !  but  I 
am  at  first  apprised  of  my  vicinity  to  a  new  and 
excellent  region  of  life.  By  persisting  to  read  or  to 
think,  this  region  gives  further  sign  of  itself,  as  it 
were  in  flashes  of  light,  in  sudden  discoveries  of  its 
profound  beauty  and  repose,  as  if  the  clouds  that 
covered  it  parted  at  intervals,  and  showed  the 
approaching  traveller  the  inland  mountains,  with  the 
tranquil  eternal  meadows  spread  at  their  base, 
whereon  flocks  graze,  and  shepherds  pipe  and  dance 
But  every  insight  from  this  realm  of  thought  is  fell 
as  initial,  and  promises  a  sequel.  I  do  not  make  it 
I  arrive  there,  and  behold  what  was  there  already* 
I  make  !  O  no  I  I  clap  my  hands  in  infantine  joy 
and  amazement,  before  the  first  opening  to  me  ol 
this  august  magnificence,  old  with  the  love  and 


EXPERIENCE.  76 

homage  of  innumerable  ages,  young  with  the  life  of 
life,  the  sunbright  Mecca  of  the  desert.  And  what 
a,  future  it  opens  I  I  feel  a  new  heart  beating  with 
the  love  of  the  new  beauty.  I  am  ready  to  die  out 
of  nature,  and  be  born  again  into  this  new  yet  un 
approachable  America  I  have  found  in  the  West. 

"Since  neither  now  nor  yesterday  began 
These  thoughts,  which  have  been  ever,  nor  yet  can 
A  man  be  found  who  their  first  entrance  knew." 

If  I  have  described  life  as  a  flux  of  moods,  I  must 
now  add,  that  there  is  that  in  us  which  changes  not, 
and  which  ranks  all  sensations  and  states  of  mind. 
The  consciousness  in  each  man  is  a  sliding  scale, 
which  indentifies  him  now  with  the  First  Cause, 
and  not  with  the  flesh  of  his  body ;  life  above 
life,  in  infinite  degrees.  The  sentiment  from 
which  it  sprung  determines  the  dignity  of  any 
deed,  and  the  question  ever  is,  not,  what  you 
have  done  or  forborne,  but,  at  whose  command  you 
have  done  or  forborne  it. 

Fortune,  Minerva,  Muse,  Holy  Ghost, — these  are 
quaint  names,  too  narrow  to  cover  this  unbounded 
substance.  The  baffled  intellect  must  still  kneel  be 
fore  this  cause,  which  refuses  to  be  named, — ineffable 
cause,  which  every  fine  genius  has  essayed  to  repre 
sent  by  some  emphatic  symbol,  as,  Thales  by  water, 


T6  ESSAt  ft 

Anaximenes  by  air,  Anaxagoras  by  (  M>wc)  thought, 
Zoroaster  by  fire,  Jesus  and  the  moderns  by  love  • 
and  the  metaphor  of  each  has  become  a  national 
religion.  The  Chinese  Mencius  has  not  been  the 
least  successful  in  his  generalization.  "I  fully 
understand  language,"  he  said,  "  and  nourish  well  my 
vast-flowing  vigor." — "I  beg  to  ask  what  you  call 
vast-flowing  vigor?" — said  his  companion.  "The 
explanation,"  replied  Mencius,  "is  difficult.  This 
vigor  is  supremely  great,  and  in  the  highest  degree 
unbending.  Nourish  it  correctly,  and  do  it  no  in 
jury,  and  it  will  fill  up  the  vacancy  between  heaven 
and  earth.  This  vigor  accords  with  and  assists  jus 
tice  and  reason,  and  leaves  no  hunger." — In  our  more 
correct  writing,  we  give  to  this  generalization  the 
name  of  Being,  and  theveby  confess  that  we  have 
arrived  as  far  as  we  can  go.  Suffice  it  for  the  joy  of 
the  universe,  that  we  have  not  arrived  at  a  wall,  but 
at  interminable  oceans.  Our  life  seems  not  present, 
so  much  as  prospective  ;  not  for  the  affairs  on  which 
it  is  wasted,  but  as  a  hint  of  this  vast-flowing  vigor. 
Most  of  life  seems  to  be  mere  advertisement  of 
faculty :  information  is  given  us  not  to  sell  our 
selves  cheap;  that  we  are  very  great.  So,  in  par 
ticular,  our  greatness  is  always  in  a  tendency  or 
direction,  not  in  action.  It  is  for  us  to  believe  in  the 


EXPERIENCE.  77 

rule,  not  in  the  exception.  The  noble  are  thus 
known  from  the  ignoble.  So  in  accepting-  the 
leading  of  the  sentiments,  it  is  not  what  we 
believe  concerning  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
or  the  like,  but  the  universal  impulse  to  believe, 
that  is  the  material  circumstance,  and  is  the 
principal  fact  in  the  history  of  the  globe.  Shall 
we  describe  this  cause  as  that  which  works  di 
rectly  ?  The  spirit  is  not  helpless  or  needful  of  mediate 
organs.  It  has  plentiful  powers  and  direct  effects. 
I  am  explained  without  explaining,  I  am  felt  with 
out  acting,  and  where  I  am  not.  Therefore  all  just 
persons  are  satisfied  with  their  own  praise.  They 
refuse  to  explain  themselves,  and  are  content  that 
new  actions  should  do  them  that  office.  They  believe 
that  we  communicate  without  speech,  and  above 
speech,  and  that  no  right  action  of  ours  is  quite  un- 
affecting  to  our  friends,  at  whatever  distance ;  for  the 
influence  of  action  is  not  to  be  measured  by  miles. 
Why  should  I  fret  myself  because  a  circumstance  has 
occurred,  which  hinders  my  presence  where  I  was 
expected  ?  If  I  am  not  at  the  meeting,  my  presence 
where  I  am,  should  be  as  useful  to  the  common 
wealth  of  friendship  and  wisdom,  as  would  be  my 
presence  in  that  place.  I  exert  the  same  quality  of 
power  in  all  places.  Thus  journeys  the  mighty 
Ideal  before  us ;  it  never  was  known  to  fall  into  the 


78  ESSAY  n. 

rear.  No  man  ever  came  to  an  experience  which 
was  satiating,  but  his  good  is  tidings  of  a  better. 
Onward  and  onward  !  In  liberated  moments,  we 
know  that  a  new  picture  of  life  and  duty  is  already 
possible ;  the  elements  already  exist  in  many  minds 
around  you,  of  a  doctrine  of  life  which  shall  tran 
scend  any  written  record  we  have.  The  new  state 
ment  will  comprise  the  skepticisms,  as  well  as  the 
faiths  of  a  society,  and  out  of  unbeliefs  a  creed  shall 
be  formed.  For,  skepticisms  are  not  gratuitous  or 
lawless,  but  are  limitations  of  the  affirmative  state 
ment,  and  the  new  philosophy  must  take  them  in, 
and  make  affirmations  outside  of  them,  just  as  much 
as  it  must  include  the  oldest  beliefs. 

It  is  very  unhappy,  but  too  late  to  be  helped,  the 
discovery  we  have  made,  that  we  exist.  That  dis 
covery  is  called  the  Fall  of  Man.  Ever  afterwards, 
we  suspect  our  instruments.  We  have  learned  that 
we  do  not  see  directly,  but  mediately,  and  that  we 
have  no  means  of  correcting  these  colored  and  dis 
torting  lenses  which  we  are,  or  of  computing  the 
amount  of  their  errors.  Perhaps  these  subject-lenses 
have  a  creative  power ;  perhaps  there  are  no  objects. 
Once  we  lived  in  what  we  saw ;  now,  the  rapacious- 
ness  of  this  new  power,  which  threatens  to  absorb  all 
things,  engages  us.  Nature,  art,  persons,  letters,  re- 


EXPERIENCE.  79 

ligions, — objects,  successively  tumble  in,  and  God  is 
but  one  of  its  ideas.  Nature  and  literature  are  sub 
jective  phenomena, ;  every  evil  and  every  good  thing 
is  a  shadow  which  we  cast.  The  street  is  full  of  hu 
miliations  to  the  proud.  As  the  fop  contrived  to 
dress  his  bailiffs  in  his  livery,  and  make  them  wait 
on  his  guests  tit  table,  so  the  chagrins  which  the  bad 
heart  gives  off  as  bubbles,  at  once  take  form  as  la 
dies  and  gentlemen  in  the  street,  shopmen  or  bar 
keepers  in  hotels,  and  threaten  or  insult  whatever  is 
threatenable  and  insultable  in  us.  'Tis  the  same 
with  our  idolatries.  People  forget  that  it  is  the  eye 
which  makes  the  horizon,  and  the  rounding  mind's 
eye  which  makes  this  or  that  man  a  type  or  repre 
sentative  of  humanity  with  the  name  of  hero  or 
saint.  Jesus  the  *4  providential  man,"  is  a  good  man 
on  whom  many  people  are  agreed  that  these  optical 
laws  shall  take  effect.  By  love  on  one  part,  and  by 
forbearance  to  press  objection  on  the  other  part,  it  is 
for  a  time  settled,  that  we  will  look  at  him  in  the 
centre  of  the  horizon,  and  ascribe  to  him  the  proper 
ties  that  will  attach  to  any  man  so  seen.  But  the 
longest  love  or  aversion  has  a  speedy  term.  The 
great  and  crescive  self,  rooted  in  absolute  nature, 
supplants  all  relative  existence,  and  ruins  the  king 
dom  of  mortal  friendship  and  love.  Marriage  (in 


80  ESSAY  n. 

what  is  called  the  spiritual  world)  is  impossible,  be* 
cause  of  the  inequality  between  every  subject  and 
every  object.  The  subject  is  the  receiver  of  God 
head,  and  at  every  comparison  must  feel  his  being 
enhanced  by  that  cryptic  might.  Though  not  in  en 
ergy,  yet  by  presence,  this  magazine  of  substance 
cannot  be  otherwise  than  felt :  nor  can  any  force  of 
intellect  attribute  to  the  object  the  proper  deity 
which  sleeps  or  wakes  forever  in  every  subject. 
Never  can  love  make  consciousness  and  ascription 
equal  in  force.  There  will  be  the  same  gulf  between 
every  me  and  thee,  as  between  the  original  and  the 
picture.  The  universe  is  the  bride  of  the  soul.  All 
private  sympathy  is  partial.  Two  human  beings  are 
like  globes,  which  can  touch  only  in  a  point,  and, 
whilst  they  remain  in  contact,  all  other  points  of 
each  of  the  spheres  are  inert ;  their  turn  must  also 
come,  and  the  longer  a  particular  union  lasts,  the 
more  energy  of  appetency  the  parts  not  in  union  ac 
quire. 

Life  will  be  imaged,  but  cannot  be  divided  nor 
doubled.  Any  invasion  of  its  unity  would  be  chaos. 
The  soul  is  not  twin-born,  but  the  only  begotten, 
and  though  revealing  itself  as  child  in  time,  child  in 
appearance,  is  of  a  fatal  and  universal  power,  admit 
ting  no  co-life.  Every  day,  every  act  betrays  the 


EXPERIENCE.  81 

ill-concealed  deity.  We  believe  in  ourselves,  as  we 
do  not  believe  in  others.  We  permit  all  things  to 
ourselves,  and  that  which  we  call  sin  in  others,  is 
experiment  for  us.  It  is  an  instance  of  our  faith  in 
ourselves,  that  men  never  speak  of  crime  as  lightly 
as  they  think :  or,  every  man  thinks  a  latitude  safe 
for  himself,  which  is  nowise  to  be  indulged  to  another. 
The  act  looks  very  differently  on  the  inside,  and 
on  the  outside  :  in  its  quality,  and  in  its  consequences. 
Murder  in  the  murderer  is  no  such  ruinous  thought 
as  poets  and  romancers  will  have  it ;  it  does  not  un 
settle  him,  or  fright  him  from  his  ordinary  notice  of 
trifles :  it  is  an  act  quite  easy  to  be  contemplated, 
but  in  its  sequel,  it  turns  out  to  be  a  horrible  jangle 
and  confounding  of  all  relations.  Especially  the 
crimes  that  spring  from  love,  seem  right  and  fair 
from  the  actor's  point  of  view,  but,  when  acted,  are 
found  destructive  of  society.  No  man  at  last  believes 
that  he  can  be  lost,  nor  that  the  crime  in  him  is  as 
black  as  in  the  felon.  Because  the  intellect  qualifies 
in  our  own  case  the  moral  judgments.  For  there  is 
no  crime  to  the  intellect.  That  is  antinomian  or 
hypernomian,  and  judges  law  as  well  as  fact.  "  It  is 
worse  than  a  crime,  it  is  a  blunder,"  said  Napoleon, 
speaking  the  language  of  the  intellect.  To  it,  the 
world  is  a  problem  in  mathematics  or  the  science  on 
6 


82  ESSAY   II. 

quantity,  and  it  leaves  out  praise  and  blame,  and  al 
weak  emotions.  All  stealing  is  comparative.  If 
you  come  to  absolutes,  pray  who  does  not  steal? 
Saints  are  sad,  because  they  behold  sin,  (even  when 
they  speculate,)  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  con 
science,  and  not  of  the  intellect ;  a  confusion  of 
thought.  Sin  seen  from  the  thought,  is  a  diminution 
or  less  :  seen  from  the  conscience  or  will,  it  is  prav- 
ity  or  bad.  The  intellect  names  it  shade,  absence  of 
light,  and  no  essence.  The  conscience  must  feel  it 
as  essence,  essential  evil.  This  it  is  not :  it  has  an 
objective  existence,  but  no  subjective. 

Thus  inevitably  does  the  universe  wear  our  color, 
and  every  object  fall  successively  into  the  subject  it 
self.  The  subject  exists,  the  subject  enlarges  ;  all 
things  sooner  or  later  fall  into  place.  As  I  am,  so  I 
see  ;  use  what  language  we  will,  we  can  never  say 
anything  but  what  we  are  ;  Hermes,  Cadmus,  Co 
lumbus,  Newton,  Bonaparte,  are  the  mind's  minis 
ters.  Instead  of  feeling  a  poverty  when  we  en 
counter  a  great  man,  let  us  treat  the  new  comer  like 
a  travelling  geologist,  who  passes  through  our  estate, 
and  shows  us  good  slate,  or  limestone,  or  anthracite, 
in  our  brush  pasture.  The  partial  action  of  each 
strong  mind  in  one  direction,  is  a  telescope  for  the 
objects  on  which  it  is  pointed.  But  every  other  part 


EXPERIENCE.  83 

of  knowledge  is  to  be  pushed  to  the  same  extrava 
gance,  ere  the  soul  attains  her  due  sphericity.  Do 
you  see  that  kitten  chasing  so  prettily  her  own  tail  ? 
If  you  could  look  with  her  eyes,  you  might  see  her 
surrounded  with  hundreds  of  figures  performing 
complex  dramas,  with  tragic  and  comic  issues,  long 
conversations,  many  characters,  many  ups  and  downs 
of  fate,^-and  meantime  it  is  only  puss  and  her  tail. 
How  long  before  our  masquerade  will  end  its  noise 
of  tamborines,  laughter,  and  shouting,  and  we  shall 
find  it  was  a  solitary  performance  ? — A  subject  and 
an  object, — it  takes  so  much  to  make  the  galvanic 
circuit  complete,  but  magnitude  adds  nothing. 
What  imports  it  whether  it  is  Kepler  and  the  sphere ; 
Columbus  and  America  ;  a  reader  and  his  book  ;  or 
puss  with  her  tail  ? 

It  is  true  that  all  the  muses  and  love  and  religion 
hate  these  developments,  and  will  find  a  way  to  pun 
ish  the  chemist,  who  publishes  in  the  parlor  the 
secrets  of  the  laboratory.  And  we  cannot  say  too 
little  of  our  constitutional  necessity  of  seeing  things 
under  private  aspects,  or  saturated  with  our  humors. 
And  yet  is  the  God  the  native  of  these  bleak  rocks. 
That  need  makes  in  morals  the  capital  virtue  of  self- 
trust.  We  must  hold  hard  to  this  poverty,  however 
scandalous,  and  by  more  vigorous  self-recoveries, 


84  ESSAY  II. 

after  the  sallies  of  action,  possess  our  axis  morf 
firmly.  The  life  of  truth  is  cold,  and  so  far  mourn 
ful  ;  but  it  is  not  the  slave  of  tears,  contritions,  and 
perturbations.  It  does  not  attempt  another's  work, 
nor  adopt  another's  facts.  It  is  a  main  lesson  oi 
wisdom  to  know  jour  own  from  another's.  I  have 
learned  that  I  cannot  dispose  of  other  people's  facts ; 
but  I  possess  such  a  key  to  my  own,  as  persuades  me 
against  all  their  denials,  that  they  also  have  a  key  to 
theirs.  A  sympathetic  person  is  placed  in  the  di 
lemma  of  a  swimmer  among  drowning  men,  who  all 
catch  at  him,  and  if  he  give  so  much  as  a  leg  or  a 
finger,  they  will  drown  him.  They  wish  to  be  saved 
from  the  mischiefs  of  their  vices,  but  not  from  their 
vices.  Charity  would  be  wasted  on  this  poor  wait 
ing  on  the  symptoms.  A  wise  and  hardy  physician 
will  say,  Come  out  of  that,  as  the  first  condition  of 
advice. 

In  this  our  talking  America,  we  are  ruined  by  our 
good  nature  and  listening  on  all  sides.  This  com 
pliance  takes  away  the  power  of  being  greatly  use 
ful.  A  man  should  not  be  able  to  look  other  than 
directly  and  forthright.  A  preoccupied  attention  is 
the  only  answer  to  the  importunate  frivolity  of  other 
people  :  an  attention,  and  to  an  aim  which  makes 
their  wsints  frivolous.  This  is  a  divine  answer,  and 


EXPERIENCE.  85 

leaves  no  appeal,  and  no  hard  thoughts.  la  Flax- 
man's  drawing  of  the  Eumenides  of  jJEschylus, 
Orestes  supplicates  Apollo,  whilst  the  Furies  sleep 
on  the  threshold.  The  face  of  the  god  expresses  a 
shade  of  regret  and  compassion,  but  calm  with  the 
conviction  of  the  irreconcilableness  of  the  two 
spheres.  He  is  born  into  other  politics,  into  the  eter 
nal  and  beautiful.  The  man  at  his  feet  asks  for  his 
interest  in  turmoils  of  the  earth,  into  which  his  na« 
ture  cannot  enter.  And  the  Eumenides  there  lying 
express  pictorially  this  disparity.  The  god  is  sur 
charged  with  his  divine  destiny. 

Illusion,  Temperament,  Succession,  Surface,  Sur 
prise,  Reality,  Subjectiveness, — these  are  threads  on 
the  loom  of  time,  these  are  the  lords  of  life.  I  dare 
not  assume  to  give  their  order,  but  I  name  them  as  I 
find  them  in  my  way.  I  know  better  than  to  claim 
any  completeness  for  my  picture.  I  am  a  fragment, 
and  this  is  a  fragment  of  me.  I  can  very  confidently 
announce  one  or  another  law,  which  throws  itself 
into  relief  and  form,  but  I  am  too  young  yet  by  some 
ages  to  compile  a  code.  I  gossip  for  my  hour  con. 
cerning  the  eternal  politics.  I  have  seen  many  fair 
pictures  not  in  vain.  A  wonderful  time  I  have  lived 
in.  I  am  not  the  novice  I  was  fourteen,  nor  yet 


88  ESSAY   II. 

seven  years  ago.  Let  who  will  ask,  where  is  the 
fruit  ?  I  find  a  private  fruit  sufficient.  This  is  a 
fruit, — that  I  should  not  ask  for  a  rash  effect  from 
meditations,  counsels,  and  the  hiving  of  truths.  I 
I  should  feel  it  pitiful  to  demand  a  result  on  this 
town  and  county,  an  overt  effect  on  the  instant  month 
and  year.  The  effect  is  deep  and  secular  as  the 
cause.  It  works  on  periods  in  which  mortal  lifetime 
Is  lost.  All  I  know  is  reception  ;  I  am  and  I  have  : 
but  I  do  not  get,  and  when  I  have  fancied  I  had  got 
ten  anything,  I  found  I  did  not.  I  worship  with 
wonder  the  great  Fortune.  My  reception  has  been 
*o  large,  that  I  am  not  annoyed  by  receiving  this  or 
that  superabundantly.  I  say  to  the  Genius,  if  he 
will  pardon  the  proverb,  In  for  a  mill,  in  for  a  million. 
When  I  receive  a  new  gift,  I  do  not  macerate  my 
body  to  make  the  account  square,  for,  if  I  should 
die,  I  could  not  make  the  account  square.  The 
benefit  overran  the  merit  the  first  day,  and  has  over 
ran  the  merit  ever  since.  The  merit  itself,  so-called, 
I  reckon  part  of  the  receiving. 

Also,  that  hankering  after  an  overt  or  practical 
effect  seems  to  me  an  apostasy.  In  good  earnest,  I 
am  willing  to  spare  this  most  unnecessary  deal  of 
doing.  Life  wears  to  me  a  visionary  face.  Hardest, 
roughest  action  is  visionary  also.  It  is  but  a  choice 


EXPERIENCE.  87 

between  soft  and  turbulent  dreams.  People  dis 
parage  knowing  and  the  intellectual  life,  and  urge 
doing.  I  am  very  content  with  knowing,  if  only  I 
could  know.  That  is  an  august  entertainment,  and 
would  suffice  me  a  great  while.  To  know  a  little, 
would  be  worth  the  expense  of  this  world.  I  hear 
always  the  law  Adrastia,  "  that  every  soul  which  had 
acquired  any  truth,  should  be  safe  from  harm  until 
another  period." 

I  know  that  the  world  I  converse  with  in  the  city 
and  in  the  farms,  is  not  the  world  I  think.  I  observe 
that  difference,  and  shall  observe  it.  One  day,  I 
shall  know  the  value  and  law  of  this  discrepance. 
But  I  have  not  found  that  much  was  gained  by 
manipular  attempts  to  realize  the  world  of  thought. 
Many  eager  persons  successively  make  an  experi 
ment  in  this  way,  and  make  themselves  ridiculous. 
They  acquire  democratic  manners,  they  foam  at  the 
mouth,  they  hate  and  deny.  Worse,  I  observe,  that, 
in  the  history  of  mankind,  there  is  never  a  solitary 
example  of  success, — taking  their  own  tests  of  suc« 
cess.  I  say  this  polemically,  or  in  reply  to  the  in 
quiry,  why  not  realize  your  world  ?  But  far  be  from 
me  the  despair  which  prejudges  the  law  by  a 
paltry  empiricism, — since  there  never  was  a  right  en. 
deavor,  but  it  succeeded.  Patience  and  patience,  we 


88  ESSAY  II. 

shall  win  at  the  last.  We  must  be  very  suspicious  oi 
the  deceptions  of  the  element  of  time.  It  takes  a 
good  deal  of  time  to  eat  or  to  sleep,  or  to  earn  a 
hundred  dollars,  and  a  very  little  time  to  entertain  a 
hope  and  an  insight  which  becomes  the  light  of  our 
life.  We  dress  our  garden,  eat  our  dinners,  discuss 
the  household  with  our  wives,  and  these  things  make 
no  impression,  are  forgotten  next  week ;  but  in  the 
solitude  to  which  every  man  is  always  returning,  he 
has  a  sanity  and  revelations,  which  is  his  passage  into 
new  worlds  he  will  carry  with  him.  Never  mind  the 
ridicule,  never  mind  the  defeat ;  up  again,  old  heart ! 
— it  seems  to  say, — there  is  victory  yet  for  all  jus 
tice  ;  and  the  true  romance  which  the  world  exists  to 
realize,  will  be  the  transformation  of  genius  into 
practical  power. 


CHARACTER. 


The  sun  set ;  but  set  not  his  hope : 
Stars  rose ;  his  faith  was  earlier  up: 
Fixed  on  the  enormous  galaxy, 
Deeper  and  older  seemed  his  eye  : 
And  matched  his  sufferance  sublime 
The  taciturnity  of  time. 
He  spoke,  and  words  more  soft  than  rain 
Brought  the  Age  of  Gold  again  : 
His  action  won  such  reverence  sweet» 
As  hid  all  measure  of  the  feat. 


Work  of  his  hand 
He  nor  commends  nor  grieves  : 
Pleads  for  itself  the  fact ; 
As  unrepenting  Nature  leaves 
Her  every  act. 


ESSAY  in. 

CHARACTER. 


I  HAVE  read  that  those  who  listened  to  Lord  Chaf> 
ham  felt  that  there  was  something  finer  in  the  man, 
than  anything  which  he  said.  It  has  been  complained 
of  our  brilliant  English  historian  of  the  French  Revo 
lution,  that  when  he  has  told  all  his  facts  about  Mir- 
abeau,  they  do  not  justify  his  estimate  of  his  genius. 
The  Gracchi,  Agis,  Cleomenes,  and  others  of  Plu 
tarch's  heroes,  do  not  in  the  record  of  facts  equal 
their  own  fame.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  the  Earl  of  Es 
sex,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  are  men  of  great  figure,  and 
of  few  deeds.  We  cannot  find  the  smallest  part  of 
the  personal  weight  of  Washington,  in  the  narrative 
of  his  exploits.  The  authority  of  the  name  of  Schil 
ler  is  too  great  for  his  books.  This  inequality  of 
the  reputation  to  the  works  or  the  anecdotes,  is  not 
accounted  for  by  saying  that  the  reverberation  is 
longer  than  the  thunder-clap  ;  but  somewhat  resided 

in  these  men  which  begot  an  expectation  that  outran 

(91) 


92  ESSAY  ni. 

all  their  performance.  The  largest  part  of  their 
power  was  latent.  This  is  that  which  we  call  Char 
acter, — a  reserved  force  which  acts  directly  by  pres 
ence  and  without  means.  It  is  conceived  of  as  a 
certain  undemonstrable  force,  a  Familiar  or  Genius, 
by  whose  impulses  the  man  is  guided,  but  whose 
counsels  he  cannot  impart ;  which  is  company  for 
him,  so  that  such  men  are  often  solitary,  or  if  they 
chance  to  be  social,  do  not  need  society,  but  can  en 
tertain  themselves  very  well  alone.  The  purest  lit 
erary  talent  appears  at  one  time  great,  at  another 
time  small,  but  character  is  of  a  stellar  and  undimin- 
ishable  greatness.  What  others  effect  by  talent  or 
by  eloquence,  this  man  accomplishes  by  some  mag 
netism.  "  Half  his  strength  he  put  not  forth."  His 
victories  are  by  demonstration  of  superiority,  and 
not  by  crossing  of  bayonets.  He  conquers,  because 
his  arrival  alters  the  face  of  affairs.  '  "  O  lole  I  how 
did  you  know  that  Hercules  was  a  god  ?  "  "  Be 
cause,"  answered  lole,  "  I  was  content  the  moment 
my  eyes  fell  on  him.  When  I  beheld  Theseus,  I 
desired  that  I  might  see  him  offer  battle,  or  at  least 
guide  his  horses  in  the  chariot-race  ;  but  Hercules 
did  not  wait  for  a  contest ;  he  conquered  whether  he 
stood,  or  walked,  or  sat,  or  whatever  thing  he  did." 
Man$  ordinarily  a  pendant  to  events,  only  half  at* 


CHAEACTEE.  93 

tached,  and  that  awkwardly,  to  the  world  he  lives  in, 
in  these  examples  appears  to  share  the  life  of  things, 
and  to  be  an  expression  of  the  same  laws  which  con- 
trol  the  tides  and  the  sun,  numbers  and  quantities. 

But  to  use  a  more  modest  illustration,  and  nearer 
home,  I  observe,  that  in  our  political  elections,  where 
this  element,  if  it  appears  at  all,  can  only  occur  in 
its  coarsest  form,  we  sufficiently  understand  its  in 
comparable  rate.  The  people  know  that  they  need 
in  their  representative  much  more  than  talent, 
namely,  the  power  to  make  his  talent  trusted.  They 
cannot  come  at  their  ends  by  sending  to  Congress  a 
learned,  acute,  and  fluent  speaker,  if  he  be  not  one, 
who,  before  he  was  appointed  by  the  people  to  repre 
sent  them,  was  appointed  by  Almighty  God  to  stand 
for  a  fact, — invincibly  persuaded  of  that  fact  in  him 
self, — so  that  the  most  confident  and  the  most  violent 
persons  learn  that  here  is  resistance  on  which  both 
impudence  and  terror  are  wasted,  namely,  faith  in  a 
fact.  The  men  who  carry  their  points  do  not  need 
to  inquire  of  their  constituents  what  they  should  say, 
but  are  themselves  the  country  which  they  represent: 
nowhere  are  its  emotions  or  opinions  so  instant  and 
true  as  in  them  ;  nowhere  so  pure  from*  a  selfish  in 
fusion.  The  constituency  at  home  hearkens  to  their 
words,  watches  the  color  of  their  cheek,  and  thereins 


94  ESSAY  III. 

as  in  a  glass,  dresses  its  own.  Our  public  assembliea 
are  pretty  good  tests  of  manly  force.  Our  frank 
countrymen  of  the  west  and  south  have  a  taste  for 
character,  and  like  to  know  whether  the  New  En- 
glander  is  a  substantial  man,  or  whether  the  hand 
can  pass  through  him. 

The  same  motive  force  appears  in  trade.  There 
are  geniuses  in  trade,  as  well  as  in  war,  or  the  state, 
or  letters  ;  and  the  reason  why  this  or  that  man  is 
fortunate,  is  not  to  be  told.  It  lies  in  the  man  :  that 
is  all  anybody  can  tell  you  about  it.  See  him,  and 
you  will  know  as  easily  why  he  succeeds,  as,  if  you 
see  Napoleon,  you  would  comprehend  his  fortune.  In 
the  new  object  we  recognize  the  old  game,  the  habit 
of  fronting  the  fact,  and  not  dealing  with  it  at  second 
hand,  through  the  perceptions  of  somebody  else.  Na 
ture  seems  to  authorize  trade,  as  soon  as  you  see  the 
natural  merchant,  who  appears  not  so  much  a  private 
agent,  as  her  factor  and  Minister  of  Commerce.  His 
natural  probity  combines  with  his  insight  into  the 
fabric  of  society,  to  put  him  above  tricks,  and  he 
communicates  to  all  his  own  faith,  that  contracts  are 
of  no  private  interpretation.  The  habit  of  his  mind 
is  a  reference  to  standards  of  natural  equity  and 
public  advantage  ;  and  he  inspires  respect,  and  the 
wish  to  deal  with  him,  both  for  the  quiet  spirit  of 


CHARACTER.  98 

honor  which  attends  him,  and  for  the  intellectual 
pastime  which  the  spectacle  of  so  much  ability  af 
fords.  This  immensely  stretched  trade,  which  makes 
the  capes  of  the  Southern  Ocean  his  wharves,  and 
the  Atlantic  Sea  his  familiar  port,  centres  in  his 
brain  only ;  and  nobody  in  the  universe  can  make 
his  place  good.  In  his  parlor,  I  see  very  well  that  he 
has  been  at  hard  work  this  morning,  with  that  knit 
ted  brow,  and  that  settled  humor,  which  all  his  de 
sire  to  be  courteous  cannot  shake  off.  I  see  plainly 
how  many  firm  acts  have  been  done ;  how  many 
valiant  noes  have  this  day  been  spoken,  when  others 
would  have  uttered  ruinous  yeas.  I  see,  with  the 
pride  of  art,  and  skill  of  masterly  arithmetic  and 
power  of  remote  combination,  the  consciousness  of 
being  an  agent  and  playfellow  of  the  original  laws  of 
the  world.  He  too  believes  that  none  can  supply 
him,  and  that  a  man  must  be  born  to  trade,  or  he 
cannot  learn  it. 

This  virtue  draws  the  mind  more,  when  it  appears 
in  action  to  ends  not  so  mixed.  It  works  with  most 
energy  in  the  smallest  companies  and  in  private  re 
lations.  In  all  cases,  it  is  an  extraordinary  and  in 
computable  agent.  The  excess  of  physical  strength 
is  paralyzed  by  it.  Higher  natures  overpower  lower 
ones  by  affecting  them,  with  a  certain  sleep.  The 


96  ESSAY  tn. 

faculties  are  locked  up,  and  offer  no  resistance.  Per* 
haps  that  is  the  universal  law.  When  the  high  can 
not  bring  up  the  low  to  itself,  it  benumbs  it,  as  man 
charms  down  the  resistance  of  the  lower  animals. 
Men  exert  on  each  other  a  similar  occult  power. 
How  often  has  the  influence  of  a  true  master  realized 
all  the  tales  of  magic  !  A  river  of  command  seemed 
to  run  down  from  his  eyes  into  all  those  who  beheld 
him,  a  torrent  of  strong  sad  light,  like  an  Ohio  or 
Danube,  which  pervaded  them  with  his  thoughts, 
and  colored  all  events  with  the  hue  of  his  mind. 
*'  What  means  did  you  employ  ?  "  was  the  question 
asked  of  the  wife  of  Concini,  in  regard  to  her  treat 
ment  of  Mary  of  Medici ;  and  the  answer  was, 
"  Only  that  influence  which  every  strong  mind  has 
over  a  weak  one."  Cannot  Csesar  in  irons  shuffle 
off  the  irons,  and  transfer  them  to  the  person  of 
Hippo  or  Thraso  the  turnkey  ?  Is  an  iron  handcuff 
so  immutable  a  bond  ?  Suppose  a  slaver  on  the  coast 
of  Guinea  should  take  on  board  a  gang  of  negroes, 
which  should  contain  persons  of  the  stamp  of  Tous- 
saint  L'Ouverture :  or,  let  us  fancy,  under  these 
swarthy  masks  he  has  a  gang  of  Washingtons  in 
chains.  When  they  arrive  at  Cuba,  will  the  relative 
order  of  the  ship's  company  be  the  same  ?  Is  there 
nothing  but  rope  and  iron?  Is  there  no  love,  np 


CHARACTER.  97 

reverence  ?  Is  there  never  a  glimpse  of  right  in  a 
poor  slave- captain's  mind ;  and  cannot  these  be  sup 
posed  available  to  break,  or  elude,  or  in  any  manner 
overmatch  the  tension  of  an  inch  or  two  of  iron  ring? 
This  is  a  natural  power,  like  light  and  heat,  and 
all  nature  cooperates  with  it.  The  reason  why  we 
feel  one  man's  presence,  aud  do  not  feel  another's,  is 
as  simple  as  gravity.  Truth  is  the  summit  of  being  ; 
justice  is  the  application  of  it  to  affairs.  All  indi 
vidual  natures  stand  in  a  scale,  according  to  the 
purity  of  this  element  in  them.  The  will  of  the  pure 
runs  down  from  them  into  other  natures,  as  water 
runs  down  from  a  higher  into  a  lower  vessel.  This 
natural  force  is  no  more  to  be  withstood,  than  any 
other  natural  force.  We  can  drive  a  stone  upward 
for  a  moment  into  the  air,  but  it  is  yet  true  that  all 
stones  will  forever  fall ;  and  whatever  instances  can 
be  quoted  of  unpunished  theft,  or  of  a  lie  which 
somebody  credited,  justice  must  prevail,  and  it  is  the 
privilege  of  truth  to  make  itself  believed.  Character 
is  this  moral  order  seen  through  the  medium  of  an 
individual  nature.  An  individual  is  an  encloser. 
Time  and  space,  liberty  and  necessity,  truth  and 
thought,  are  left  at  large  no  longer.  Now,  the  uni 
verse  is  a  close  or  pound.  All  things  exist  in  the 
roan  tinged  with  the  manners  of  his  soul.  With 


9H  ESSAY  III. 

what  quality  is  in  him,  he  infuses  all  nature  that  he 
can  reach ;  nor  does  he  tend  to  lose  himself  in  vast- 
ness,  but,  at  how  long  a  curve  soever,  all  his  regards 
return  into  his  own  good  at  last.  He  animates  all 
he  can,  and  he  sees  only  what  he  animates.  He  en 
closes  the  world,  as  the  patriot  does  his  country,  as 
a  material  basis  for  his  character,  and  a  theatre  for 
action.  A  healthy  soul  stands  united  with  the  Just 
and  the  True,  as  the  magnet  arranges  itself  with  the 
pole,  so  that  he  stands  to  all  beholders  like  a  trans 
parent  object  betwixt  them  and  the  sun,  and  whoso 
journeys  towards  the  sun,  journeys  towards  that 
person.  He  is  thus  the  medium  of  the  highest  in 
fluence  to  all  who  are  not  on  the  same  level.  Thus, 
men  of  character  are  the  conscience  of  the  society  to 
which  they  belong. 

The  natural  measure  of  this  power  is  the  resist 
ance  of  circumstances.  Impure  men  consider  life  as 
it  is  reflected  in  opinions,  events,  and  persons.  They 
cannot  see  the  action,  until  it  is  done.  Yet  its  moral 
element  pre-existed  in  the  actor,  and  its  quality  as 
right  or  wrong,  it  was  easy  to  predict.  Everything 
in  nature  is  bipolar,  or  has  a  positive  and  negative 
pole.  There  is  a  male  and  a  female,  a  spirit  and  a 
fact,  a  north  and  a  south.  Spirit  is  the  positive,  the 
event  is  the  negative.  Will  is  the  north,  action  the 


CHARACTER.  99 

south  pole.  Character  may  be  ranked  as  having  its 
natural  place  in  the  north.  It  shares  the  magnetic 
currents  of  the  system.  The  feeble  souls  are  drawn 
to  the  south  or  negative  pole.  They  look  at  the 
profit  or  hurt  of  the  action.  They  never  behold  a 
principle  until  it  is  lodged  in  a  person.  They  do  not 
wish  to  be  lovely,  but  to  be  loved.  The  class  of 
character  like  to  hear  of  their  faults ;  the  other  class 
do  not  like  to  hear  of  faults  ;  they  worship  events  ; 
secure  to  them  a  fact,  a  connexion,  a  certain  chain 
of  circumstances,  and  they  will  ask  no  more.  The 
hero  sees  that  the  event  is  ancillary :  it  must  follow 
Mm.  A  given  order  of  events  has  no  power  to  se 
cure  to  him  the  satisfaction  which  the  imagination 
attaches  to  it ;  the  soul  cf  goodness  escapes  from  any 
set  of  circumstances,  whilst  prosperity  belongs  to  a 
certain  mind,  and  will  introduce  that  power  and 
victory  which  is  its  natural  fruit,  into  any  order  of 
events.  No  change  of  circumstances  can  repair  a 
defect  of  character.  We  boast  our  emancipation 
from  many  superstitions  ;  but  if  we  have  broken  any 
idols,  it  is  through  a  transfer  of  the  idolatry.  What 
have  I  gained,  that  I  no  longer  immolate  a  bull  to 
Jove,  or  to  Neptune,  or  a  mouse  to  Hecate  ,  that  I 
do  not  tremble  before  the  Eumenides,  or  the  Catho 
lic  Purgatory,  or  the  Calvinistic  Judgment-day, — if 


100  ESSAY  III. 

I  quake  at  opinion,  the  public  opinion,  as  we  call  it, 
or  at  the  threat  of  assault,  or  contumely,  or  bad 
neighbors,  or  poverty,  or  mutilation,  or  at  the  rumor 
of  revolution,  or  of  murder?  If  I  quake,  what  mat 
ters  it  what  I  quake  at?  Our  proper  vice  takes 
form  in  one  or  another  shape,  according  to  the  sex, 
age,  or  temperament  of  the  person,  and,  if  we  are 
capable  of  fear,  will  readily  find  terrors.  The  covet- 
ousness  or  the  malignity  which  saddens  me,  when  I 
ascribe  it  to  society,  is  my  own.  I  am  always  en 
vironed  by  myself.  On  the  other  part,  rectitude  is  a 
perpetual  victory,  celebrated  not  by  cries  of  joy,  but 
by  serenity,  which  is  joy  fixed  or  habitual.  It  is  dis 
graceful  to  fly  to  events  for  confirmation  of  our 
truth  and  worth.  The  capitalist  does  not  run  every 
hour  to  the  broker,  to  coin  his  advantages  into  cur 
rent  money  of  the  realm  ;  he  is  satisfied  to  read  in 
the  quotations  of  the  market,  that  his  stocks  have 
risen.  The  same  transport  which  the  occurrence  of 
the  best  events  in  the  best  order  would  occasion  me, 
I  must  learn  to  taste  purer  in  the  perception  that  my 
position  is  every  hour  meliorated,  and  does  already 
command  those  events  I  desire.  That  exultation  is 
only  to  be  checked  by  the  foresight  of  an  order  of 
things  so  excellent,  as  to  throw  all  our  prosperities 
into  the  deepest  shade. 


CHARACTER.  101 

The  face  which  character  wears  to  +&&J  in  seif-suMo-' 
ingness.  I  revere  the  person  who  has  riches :  -so  that 
I  cannot  think  of  him  as  alone,  or  poor;  or  eiiletT;  Or' 
unhappy,  or  a  client,  but  as  perpetual  patron,  bene 
factor,  and  beatified  man.  Character  is  centrality, 
the  impossibility  of  being  displaced  or  overset.  A 
man  should  give  us  a  sense  of  mass.  Society  is  friv 
olous,  and  shreds  its  day  into  scraps,  its  conversation 
into  ceremonies  and  escapes.  But  if  I  go  to  see  an 
ingenious  man,  I  shall  think  myself  poorly  enter 
tained  if  he  give  me  nimble  pieces  of  benevolence 
and  etiquette ;  rather  he  shall  stand  stoutly  in  his 
place,  and  let  me  apprehend,  if  it  were  only  his  re 
sistance  ;  know  that  I  have  encountered  a  new  and 
positive  quality ; — great  refreshment  for  both  of  us. 
It  is  much,  that  he  does  not  accept  the  conventional 
opinions  and  practices.  That  nonconformity  will  re 
main  a  goad  and  remembrancer,  and  every  inquirer 
will  have  to  dispose  of  him,  in  the  first  place.  There 
is  nothing  real  or  useful  that  is  not  a  seat  of  war. 
Our  houses  ring  with  laughter  and  personal  and  crit 
ical  gossip,  but  it  helps  little.  But  the  uncivil,  un 
available  man,  who  is  a  problem  and  a  threat  to  so 
ciety,  whom  it  cannot  let  pass  in  silence,  but  must 
either  worship  or  hate, — and  to  whom  all  parties  feel 
related,  both  the  leaders  of  opinion,  and  the  obscure 


102  ESSAY  III. 

iaiid  eccentriQy--^h.e  helps;  he  puts  America  and 
<EJur.ape.  in. the  wrong,  and  destroys  the  skepticism 
which  <says>  •*  ma-a  is  a  doll,  let  us  eat  and  drink,  'tis 
the  best  we  can  do,'  by  illuminating  the  untried  and 
unknown.  Acquiescence  in  the  establishment,  and 
appeal  to  the  public,  indicate  infirm  faith,  heads 
which  are  riot  clear,  and  which  must  see  a  house 
built,  before  they  can  comprehend  the  plan  of  it. 
The  wise  man  not  only  leaves  out  of  his  thought  the 
many,  but  leaves  out  the  few.  Fountains,  fountains, 
the  self-moved,  the  absorbed,  the  commander  because 
he  is  commanded,  the  assured,  the  primary, — they  are 
good  ;  for  these  announce  the  instant  presence  of  su 
preme  power. 

Our  action  should  rest  mathematically  on  our  sub 
stance.  In  nature,  there  are  no  false  valuations.  A 
pound  of  water  in  the  ocean-tempest  has  no  more 
gravity  than  in  a  mid-summer  pond.  All  things 
work  exactly  according  to  their  quality,  and  accord 
ing  to  their  quantity ;  attempt  nothing  they  cannot 
do,  except  man  only.  He  has  pretension :  he  wishes 
and  attempts  things  beyond  his  force.  I  read  in  a 
book  of  English  memoirs,  "  Mr.  Fox  (afterwards 
Lord  Holland)  said,  he  must  have  the  Treasury ;  ne 
had  served  up  to  it,  and  would  have  it." — Xenophon 
and  his  Ten  Thousand  were  quite  equal  to  what  they 


CHARACTER.  103 

attempted,  and  did  it ;  so  equal,  that  it  was  not  sus 
pected  to  be  a  grand  and  inimitable  exploit.  Yet 
there  stands  that  fact  unrepeated,  a  high-water-mark 
in  military  history.  Many  have  attempted  it  since, 
and  not  been  equal  to  it.  It  is  only  on  reality,  that 
any  power  of  action  can  be  based.  No  institution 
will  be  better  than  the  institutor.  I  knew  an  ami 
able  and  accomplished  person  who  undertook  a  prac 
tical  reform,  yet  I  was  never  able  to  find  in  him  the 
enterprise  of  love  he  took  in  hand.  He  adopted  it 
by  ear  and  by  the  understanding  from  the  books  he 
had  been  reading.  All  his  action  was  tentative,  a 
piece  of  the  city  carried  out  into  the  fields,  and  was 
the  city  still,  and  no  new  fact,  and  could  not  inspire 
enthusiasm.  Had  there  been  something  latent  in  the 
man,  a  terrible  undemonstrated  genius  agitating  and 
embarrassing  his  demeanor,  we  had  watched  for  its 
advent.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  intellect  should 
see  the  evils,  and  their  remedy.  We  shall  still  post 
pone  onr  existence,  nor  take  the  ground  to  which  we 
are  entitled,  whilst  it  is  only  a  thought,  and  not  a 
spirit  that  incites  us.  We  have  not  yet  served  up  to 
it. 

These  are  properties  of  life,  and  another  trait  is 
the  notice  of  incessant  growth.  Men  should  be  in 
telligent  and  earnest.  They  must  also  make  us  feel, 


104  ESSAY  III. 

that  they  have  a  controlling  happy  future,  opening 
before  them,  which  sheds  a  splendor  on  the  passing 
hour.  The  hero  is  misconceived  and  misreported : 
he  cannot  therefore  wait  to  unravel  any  man's  blun 
ders  :  he  is  again  on.  his  road,  adding  new  powers 
and  honors  to  his  domain,  and  new  claims  on  your 
heart,  which  will  bankrupt  you,  if  you  have  loitered 
about  the  old  things,  and  have  not  kept  your  relation 
to  him,  by  adding  to  your  wealth.  New  actions  are 
the  only  apologies  and  explanations  of  old  ones, 
which  the  noble  can  bear  to  offer  or  to  receive.  If 
your  friend  has  displeased  you,  you  shall  not  sit 
down  to  consider  it,  for  he  has  already  lost  all  mem 
ory  of  the  passage,  and  has  doubled  his  power  to 
serve  you,  and,  ere  you  can  rise  up  again,  will  burden 
you  wi  h  blessings. 

We  have  no  pleasure  in  thinking  of  a  benevolence 
that  is  only  measured  by  its  works.  Love  is  inex 
haustible,  and  if  its  estate  is  wasted,  its  granary 
emptied,  still  cheers  and  enriches,  and  the  man, 
though  he  sleep,  seems  to  purify  the  air,  and  his 
house  to  adorn  the  landscape  and  strengthen  the 
laws.  People  always  recognize  this  difference.  We 
know  who  is  benevolent,  by  quite  other  means  than 
the  amount  of  subscription  to  soup-societies.  It  is 
only  low  merits  that  can  be  enumerated.  Fear, 


CHARACTER.  105 

when  your  friends  say  to  you  what  you  have  done 
well,  and  say  it  through ;  but  when  they  stand  with 
uncertain  timid  looks  of  respect  and  half -dislike,  and 
must  suspend  their  judgment  for  years  to  come,  you 
may  begin  to  hope.  Those  who  live  to  the  future 
must  always  appear  selfish  to  those  who  live  to  the 
present.  Therefore  it  was  droll  in  the  good  Rieme^ 
who  has  written  memoirs  of  Goethe,  to  make  out  a 
list  of  his  donations  and  good  deeds,  as,  so  many 
hundred  thalers  given  to  Stilling,  to  Hegel,  to  Tisch- 
bein  :  a  lucrative  place  found  for  Professor  Voss,  a 
post  under  the  Grand  Duke  for  Herder,  a  pension 
for  Meyer,  two  professors  recommended  to  foreign 
universities,  &c.  &c.  The  longest  list  of  specifica 
tions  of  benefit,  would  look  very  short.  A  man  is  a 
poor  creature,  if  he  is  to  be  measured  so.  I'^or,  all 
these,  of  course,  are  exceptions ;  and  the  rule  and 
hodiernal  life  of  a  good  man  is  benefaction.  The 
true  charity  of  Goethe  is  to  be  inferred  from  the  ac 
count  he  gave  Dr.  Eckermann,  of  the  way  in  which  he 
had  spent  his  fortune.  "  Each  bon-mot  of  mine  has 
cost  a  purse  of  gold.  Half  a  million  of  my  own 
money,  the  fortune  I  inherited,  my  salary,  and  the 
large  income  derived  from  my  writings  for  fifty  years 
back,  riav^  been  expended  to  instruct  me  in  what  I 
now  kuow.  I  have  besides  seen,"  &c. 


106  ESSAY  III. 

I  own  it  is  but  poor  chat  and  gossip  to  go  to  enum 
erate  traits  of  this  simple  and  rapid  power,  and  we 
are  painting  the  lightning  with  charcoal ;  but  in 
these  long  nights  and  vacations,  I  like  to  console 
myself  so.  Nothing  but  itself  can  copy  it.  A  word 
warm  from  the  heart  enriches  me.  I  surrender  at 
discretion.  How  death-cold  is  literary  genius  before 
this  fire  of  life  !  These  are  the  touches  that  reani 
mate  my  heavy  soul,  and  give  it  eyes  to  pierce  the 
dark  of  nature.  I  find,  where  I  thought  myself 
poor,  there  was  I  most  rich.  Thence  comes  a  new 
intellectual  exaltation,  to  be  again  rebuked  by  some 
new  exhibition  of  character.  Strange  alternation  of 
attraction  and  repulsion  !  Character  repudiates  in 
tellect,  yet  excites  it;  and  character  passes  into 
thought,  is  published  so,  and  then  is  ashamed  before 
new  flashes  of  moral  worth. 

Character  is  nature  in  the  highest  form.  It  is  of 
no  use  to  ape  it,  or  to  contend  with  it.  Somewhat 
is  possible  of  resistance,  and  of  persistence,  and  of 
creation,  to  this  power,  which  will  foil  all  emula 
tion. 

This  masterpiece  is  best  where  no  hands  but  na 
ture  have  been  laid  on  it.  Care  is  taken  that 
the  greatly-destined  shall  slip  up  into  life  in  the 
shade,  with  no  thousand-eyed  Athens  to  watch  and 


CHABACTEfc.  107 

blazon  every  new  thought,  every  blushing  emotion 
of  young  genius.  Two  persons  lately, — very  young 
children  of  the  most  high  God, — have  given  me  oc 
casion  for  thought.  When  I  explored  the  source  of 
their  sanctity,  and  charm  for  the  imagination,  it 
seemed  as  if  each  answered,  '  From  my  non-conform 
ity  :  I  never  listened  to  your  people's  law,  or  to  what 
they  call  their  gospel,  and  wasted  my  time.  I  was 
content  with  the  simple  rural  poverty  of  my  own  r 
hence  this  sweetness  :  my  work  never  reminds  you 
of  that ; — is  pure  of  that.'  And  nature  advertises 
me  in  such  persons,  that,  in  democratic  America,  she 
will  not  be  democratized.  How  cloistered  and  con 
stitutionally  sequestered  from  the  market  and  from 
scandal !  It  was  only  this  morning,  that  I  sent 
away  some  wild  flowers  of  these  wood-gods.  They 
are  a  relief  from  literature, — these  fresh  draughts 
from  the  sources  of  thought  and  sentiment ;  as 
we  read,  in  an  age  of  polish  and  criticism,  the 
first  lines  of  written  prose  and  verse  of  a  nation. 
How  captivating  is  their  devotion  to  their  favorite 
books,  whether  ^Eschylus,  Dante,  Shakspeare,  or 
Scott,  as  feeling  that  they  have  a  stake  in  that  book: 
who  touches  that,  touches  them  ; — and  especially  the 
total  solitude  of  the  critic,  the  Patmos  of  thought 
from  which  he  writes,  in  unconsciousness  of  any 


108  ESSAY  ttt. 

eyes  that  shall  ever  read  this  writing.  Could  they 
dream  on  still,  as  angels,  and  not  wake  to  compari* 
sons,  and  to  be  flattered  !  Yet  some  natures  are  too 
good  to  be  spoiled  by  praise,  and  wherever  the  vein 
of  thought  reaches  down  into  the  profound,  there  is  no 
danger  from  vanity.  Solemn  friends  will  warn  them 
of  the  danger  of  the  head's  being  turned  by  the  flour 
ish  of  trumpets  but  they  can  afford  to  smile.  I  re 
member  the  indignation  of  an  eloquent  Methodist  at 
the  kind  admonitions  of  a  Doctor  of  Divinity, — '  My 
friend  a  man  can  neither  be  praised  nor  insulted.' 
But  forgive  the  counsels;  they  are  very  natural.  I 
remember  the  thought  which  occurred  to  me  when 
some  ingenious  and  spiritual  foreigners  came  to 
America,  was,  Have  you  been  victimized  in  being 
brought  hither? — or,  prior  to  that,  answer  me  this, 
4  Are  you  victimizable  ?  ' 

As  I  have  said,  nature  keeps  these  sovereignties  in 
her  own  hands,  and  however  pertly  our  sermons  and 
disciplines  would  divide  some  share  of  credit,  and 
teach  that  the  laws  fashion  the  citizen,  she  goes  her 
own  gait,  and  puts  the  wisest  in  the  wrong.  She 
makes  very  light  of  gospels  and  prophets,  as  one  who 
has  a  great  many  more  to  produce,  and  no  excess  of 
time  to  spare  on  any  one.  There  is  a  class  of  men, 
individuals  of  which  appear  at  long  intervals,  so  em' 


CHARACTER.  109 

iriently  endowed  with  insight  and  virtue,  that  they 
have  been  unanimously  saluted  as  divine,  and  who 
seem  to  be  an  accumulation  of  that  power  we  con 
sider.  Divine  persons  are  character  born,  or,  to  bor 
row  a  phrase  from  Napoleon,  they  are  victory  organ 
ized.  They  are  usually  received  with  ill-will,  be 
cause  they  are  new,  and  because  they  set  a  bound  to 
the  exaggeration  that  has  been  made  of  the  person 
ality  of  the  last  divine  person.  Nature  never 
rhymes  her  children,  nor  makes  two  men  alike. 
When  we  see  a  great  man,  we  fancy  a  resemblance 
to  some  historical  person,  and  predict  the  sequel  of 
his  character  and  fortune,  a  result  which  he  is  sure 
to  disappoint.  None  will  ever  solve  the  problem  of 
his  character  according  to  our  prejudice,  but  only  in 
his  own  high  unprecedented  way.  Character  wants 
room  ;  must  not  be  crowded  on  by  persons,  nor  be 
judged  from  glimpses  got  in  the  press  of  affairs  or 
on  few  occasions,  It  needs  perspective,  as  a  great 
building.  It  may  not,  probably  does  not,  form  rela 
tions  rapidly;  and  we  should  not  require  rash  expla 
nation,  either  on  the  popular  ethics,  or  on  our  own, 
of  its  action. 

I  look  on  Sculpture  as  history.  I  do  not  think  the 
Apollo  and  the  Jove  impossible  in  flesh  and  blood. 
Every  trait  which  the  artist  recorded  in  stone,  he 


110  ESSAY^  III. 

had  seen  in  life,  and  better  than  his  copy.  We  have 
seen  many  counterfeits,  but  we  are  born  believers  in 
great  men.  How  easily  we  read  in  old  books,  when 
men  were  few,  of  the  smallest  action  of  the  pa 
triarchs.  We  require  that  a  man  should  be  so.  large 
and  columnar  in  the  landscape,  that  it  should  de 
serve  to  be  recorded,  that  he  arose,  and  girded  up 
his  loins,  and  departed  to  such  a  place.  The  most 
credible  pictures  are  those  of  majestic  men  who  pre 
vailed  at  their  entrance,  and  convinced  the  senses ; 
as  happened  to  the  eastern  magian  who  was  sent  to 
test  the  merits  of  Zertusht  or  Zoroaster.  When  the 
Yunani  sage  arrived  at  Balkh,  the  Persians  tell  us, 
Gushtasp  appointed  a  day  on  which  the  Mobeds  of 
every  country  should  assemble,  and  a  golden  chair 
was  placed  for  the  Yunani  sage.  Then  the  beloved 
of  Yezdam,  the  prophet  Zertusht,  advanced  into  the 
midst  of  the  assembly.  The  Yunani  sage,  on  seeing 
that  chief,  said,  "  This  form  and  this  gait  cannot  lie, 
and  nothing  but  truth  can  proceed  from  them." 
Plato  said,  it  was  impossible  not  to  believe  in  the 
children  of  the  gods,  "  though  they  should  speak 
without  probable  or  necessary  arguments."  I  should 
think  myself  very  unhappy  in  my  associates,  if  I 
could  not  credit  the  best  things  in  history.  "  John 
Bradshaw,"  says  Milton,  "appears  like  a  consul, 


CHARACTER.  Ill 

from  whom  the  fasces  are  not  to  depart  with  the 
year ;  so  that  not  on  the  tribunal  only,  but  through 
out  his  life,  you  would  regard  him  as  sitting  in  judg 
ment  upon  kings."  I  find  it  more  credible,  since  it 
is  anterior  information,  that  one  man  should  know 
heaven,  as  the  Chinese  say,  than  that  so  many  men 
should  know  the  world.  "  The  virtuous  prince  con' 
fronts  the  gods,  without  any  misgiving.  He  waits  a 
hundred  ages  till  a  sage  comes,  and  does  not  doubt. 
He  who  confronts  the  gods,  without  any  misgiving, 
knows  heaven ;  he  who  waits  a  hundred  ages  until  a 
sage  conies,  without  doubting,  knows  men0  Hence 
the  virtuous  prince  moves,  and  for  ages  shows  empire 
the  way."  But  there  is  no  need  to  seek  remote  ex 
amples.  He  is  a  dull  observer  whose  experience  has 
not  taught  him  the  reality  and  force  of  magic,  as  well 
as  of  chemistry.  The  coldest  precision  cannot  go 
abroad  without  encountering  inexplicable  influences. 
One  man  fastens  an  eye  on  him,  and  the  graves  of 
the  memory  render  up  their  dead  ^  the  secrets  that 
make  him  wretched  either  to  keep  or  to  betray,  must 
be  yielded  ; — another,  and  he  cannot  speak,  and  the 
bones  of  his  body  seem  to  lose  their  cartilages ;  the 
entrance  of  a  friend  adds  grace,  boldness,  and  elo 
quence  to  him  ;  and  there  are  persons,  he  cannot; 
choose  but  remember,  who  gave  a  transcendant  ex- 


112  ESSAY  in. 

pansion  to  his  thought,  and  kindled  another  life  in 
his  bosom. 

What  is  so  excellent  as  strict  relations  of  amity, 
when  they  spring  from  this  deep  root?  The  suffi 
cient  reply  to  the  skeptic,  who  doubts  the  power  and 
the  furniture  of  man,  is  in  that  possibility  of  joyful 
intercourse  with  persons,  which  makes  the  faith  and 
practice  of  all  reasonable  men.  I  know  nothing  whicn 
life  has  to  offer  so  satisfying  as  the  profound  good 
understanding,  which  can  subsist,  after  much  ex 
change  of  good  offices,  between  two  virtuous  men, 
each  of  whom  is  sure  of  himself,  and  sure  of  his 
friend.  It  is  a  happiness  which  postpones  all  other 
gratifications,  and  makes  politics,  and  commerce,  and 
churches,  cheap.  For,  when  men  shall  meet  as  they 
ought,  each  a  benefactor,  a  shower  of  stars,  clothed 
with  thoughts,  with  deeds,  with  accomplishments,  it 
should  be  the  festival  of  nature  which  all  things 
announce.  Of  such  friendship,  love  in  the  sexes  is 
the  first  symbol,  as  all  other  things  are  symbols  of 
love.  Those  relations  to  the  best  men,  which,  at  one 
time,  we  reckoned  the  romances  of  youth,  become, 
in  the  progress  of  the  character,  the  most  solid  en 
joyment. 

If  it  were  possible  to  live  in  right  relations  with 
men  ! — if  we  could  abstain  from  asking  anything  of 


CHARACTER.  113 

them,  from  asking  their  praise,  or  help,  or  pity,  and 
content  us  with  compelling  them  through  the  virtue  of 
the  eldest  laws !  Could  we  not  deal  with  a  tew  per 
sons, — with  one  person, — after  the  unwritten  statutes, 
and  make  an  experiment  of  their  efficacy  ?  Could 
we  not  pay  our  friend  the  compliment  of  truth,  of 
silence,  of  forbearing?  Need  we  be  so  eager  to  seek 
him  ?  If  we  are  related,  we  shall  meet.  It  was  a 
tradition  of  the  ancient  world,  that  no  metamor 
phosis  could  hide  a  god  from  a  god ;  and  there  is  a 
Greek  verse  which  runs, 

"  The  Gods  are  to  each  other  not  unknown." 

Friends  also  follow  the  laws  of  divine  necessity; 
they  gravitate  to  each  other,  and  cannot  other 
wise  : — 

When  each  the  other  shall  avoid, 
Shall  each  by  each  be  most  enjoyed. 

Their  relation  is  not  made,  but  allowed.  The  gods 
must  seat  themselves  without  seneschal  in  our  Olym 
pus,  and  as  they  can  instal  themselves  by  seniority 
divine.  Society  is  spoiled,  if  pains  are  taken,  if  the 
associates  are  brought  a  mile  to  meet.  And  if  it  be 
not  society,  it  is  a  mischievous,  low,  degrading  jangle, 
though  made  up  of  the  best.  All  the  greatness  of 
8 


114  ESSAY  in. 

each  is  kept  back,  and  every  foible  in  painful  ac 
tivity,  as  if  the  Olympians  should  meet  to  exchange 
snuff-boxes. 

Life  goes  headlong.  We  chase  some  fly  ing  scheme, 
or  we  are  hunted  by  some  fear  or  command  behind 
us.  But  if  suddenly  we  encounter  a  friend,  we 
pause  ;  our  heat  and  hurry  look  foolish  enough  ;  now 
pause,  now  possession,  is  required,  and  the  power  to 
swell  the  moment  from  the  resources  of  the  heart. 
The  moment  is  all,  in  all  noble  relations. 

A  divine  person  is  the  prophecy  of  the  mind ;  a 
friend  is  the  hope  of  the  heart.  Our  beatitude  waits 
for  the  fulfilment  of  these  two  in  one.  The  ages  are 
opening  this  moral  force.  All  force  is  the  shadow  or 
symbol  of  that.  Poetry  is  joyful  and  strong,  as  it 
draws  its  inspiration  thence.  Men  write  their  names 
on  the  world,  as  they  are  filled  with  this.  History 
has  been  mean ;  our  nations  have  been  mob  ;  we 
have  never  seen  a  man  :  that  divine  form  we  do  not 
yet  know,  but  only  the  dream  and  prophecy  of  such : 
we  do  not  know  the  majestic  manners  which  belong  to 
him,  which  appease  and  exalt  the  beholder.  We  shall 
one  day  see  that  the  most  private  is  the  most  public 
energy,  that  quality  atones  for  quantity,  and  grandeur 
of  character  acts  in  the  dark,  and  succors  them  who 
never  saw  it.  What  greatness  has  yet  appeared,  is 


CHARACTER.  115 

beginnings  and  encouragements  to  us  in  this  direction. 
The  history  of  those  gods  and  saints  which  the 
world  has  written,  and  then  worshipped,  are  docu 
ments  of  character.  The  ages  have  exulted  in  the 
manners  of  a  youth  who  owed  nothing  to  fortune, 
and  who  was  hanged  at  the  Tyburn  of  his  nation, 
who,  by  the  pure  quality  of  his  nature,  shed  an  epic 
splendor  around  the  facts  of  his  death,  which  has 
transfigured  every  particular  into  an  universal  sym 
bol  for  the  eyes  of  mankind.  This  great  defeat  is 
hitherto  our  highest  fact.  But  the  mind  requires  a 
victory  to  the  senses,  a  force  of  character  which  will 
convert  judge,  jury,  soldier,  and  king ;  which  will 
rule  animal  and  mineral  virtues,  and  blend  with  the 
courses  of  sap,  of  rivers,  of  winds,  of  stars,  and  of 
moral  agents. 

If  we  cannot  attain  at  a  bound  to  these  grandeurs, 
at  least,  let  us  do  them  homage.  In  society,  high 
advantages  are  set  down  to  the  possessor,  as  disad 
vantages.  It  requires  the  more  wariness  in  our 
private  estimates,  I  do  not  forgive  in  my  friends  the 
failure  to  know  a  fine  character,  and  to  entertain  it 
with  thankful  hospitality.  When,  at  last,  that  which 
we  have  always  longed  for,  is  arrived,  and  shines  on 
us  with  glad  rays  out  of  that  far  celestial  land,  then 
to  be  coarse,  then  to  be  critical,  and  treat  such  a 


116  ESSAY  III. 

visitant  with  the  jabber  and  suspicion  of  the  streets, 
argues  a  vulgarity  that  seems  to  shut  the  doors  of 
heaven.  This  is  confusion,  this  the  right  insanity, 
when  the  soul  no  longer  knows  its  own,  nor  where 
its  allegiance,  its  religion,  are  due.  Is  there  any  re 
ligion  but  this,  to  know,  that,  wherever  in  the  wide 
desert  of  being,  the  holy  sentiment  we  cherish  has 
opened  into  a  flower,  it  blooms  for  me  ?  if  none  sees 
it,  I  see  it ;  I  am  aware,  if  I  alone,  of  the  greatness 
of  the  fact.  Whilst  it  blooms,  I  will  keep  sabbath  or 
holy  time,  and  suspend  my  gloom,  and  my  folly  and 
jokes.  Nature  is  indulged  by  the  presence  of  this 
guest.  There  are  many  eyes  that  can  detect  and 
honor  the  prudent  and  household  virtues ;  there  are 
many  that  can  discern  Genius  on  his  starry  track, 
though  the  mob  is  incapable ;  but  when  that  love 
which  is  all -suffering,  all-abstaining,  all-aspiring,  which 
has  vowed  to  itself,  that  it  will  be  a  wretch  and  also  a 
fool  in  this  world,  sooner  than  soil  its  white  hands  by 
any  compliances,  comes  into  our  streets  and  houses, 
—only  the  pure  and  aspiring  can  know  its  face,  and 
the  only  compliment  they  can  pay  it,  is  to  own  it. 


MANNERS. 


How  near  to  good  is  what  is  fair; 
Which  we  no  sooner  see, 
But  with  the  lines  and  outward  air 
Our  senses  taken  be,, 

Again  yourselves  compose, 
And  now  put  all  the  aptness  on 
Of  Figure,  that  Proportion 

Or  Color  can  disclose; 
That  if  those  silent  arts  were  lost, 
Design  and  Picture,  they  might  boast 

From  you  a  newer  ground, 
Instructed  by  the  heightening  sense 
Of  dignity  and  reverence 

In  their  true  motions  found." 

BEN  JONSON. 


(117) 


ESSAY  IV. 
MANNERS. 


HALF  the  world,  it  is  said,  knows  not  how  the 
other  half  live.  Our  Exploring  Expedition  saw  the 
Feejee  islanders  getting  their  dinner  off  human 
bones ;  and  they  are  said  to  eat  their  own  wives  and 
children.  The  husbandry  of  the  modern  inhabitants 
of  Gournou  (west  of  old  Thebes)  is  philosophical  to 
a  fault.  To  set  up  their  housekeeping,  nothing  is 
requisite  but  two  or  three  earthern  pots,  a  stone  to 
grind  meal,  and  a  mat  which  is  the  bed.  The  house, 
namely,  a  tomb,  is  ready  without  rent  or  taxes.  No 
rain  can  pass  through  the  roof,  and  there  is  no  door, 
for  there  is  no  want  of  one,  as  there  is  nothing  to 
lose.  If  the  house  do  not  please  them,  they  walk 
out  and  enter  another,  as  there  are  several  hundreds 
at  their  command.  "  It  is  somewhat  singular,"  adds 
Belzoni,  to  whom  we  owe  this  account,  u  to  talk  of 
happiness  among  people  who  live  in  sepulchres, 
among  the  corpses  and  rags  of  an  ancient  nation 


120  ESSAY   IV, 

which  they  know  nothing  of.'*  In  the  deserts  of 
Borgoo,  the  rock-Tibboos  still  dwell  in  caves,  like 
cliff-swallows,  and  the  language  of  these  negroes  is 
compared  by  their  neighbors  to  the  shrieking  of 
bats,  and  to  the  whistling  of  birds.  Again,  the 
Bornoos  have  no  proper  names ;  individuals  are 
called  after  their  height,  thickness,  or  other  acci 
dental  quality,  and  have  nicknames  merely.  But 
the  salt,  the  dates,  the  ivory,  and  the  gold,  for  which 
these  horrible  regions  are  visited,  find  their  way  into 
countries,  where  the  purchaser  and  consumer  can 
hardly  be  ranked  in  one  race  with  these  cannibals 
and  man-stealers  ;  countries  where  man  serves  him 
self  with  metals,  wood,  stone,  glass,  gum,  cotton, 
silk,  and  wool ;  honors  himself  with  architecture  ; 
writes  laws,  and  contrives  to  execute  his  will  through 
the  hands  of  many  nations ;  and,  especially,  estab 
lishes  a  select  society,  running  through  all  the  coun 
tries  of  intelligent  men,  a  self-constituted  aristocracy, 
or  fraternity  of  the  best,  which,  without  written  law 
or  exact  usage  of  any  kind,  perpetuates  itself,  colon 
izes  every  new-planted  island,  and  adopts  and  makes 
its  own  whatever  personal  beauty  or  extraordinary 
native  endowment  anywhere  appears. 

What  fact  more  conspicuous  in  modern  history, 
thac   the  creation  of  the  gentleman?      Chivalry  is 


MANNERS.  121 

that,  and  loyalty  is  that,  and,  in  English  literature, 
half  the  drama,  and  all  the  novels,  from  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  to  Sir  Walter  Scott,  paint  this  figure.  The 
word  gentleman,  which,  like  the  word  Christian, 
must  hereafter  characterize  the  present  and  the  few 
preceding  centuries,  by  the  importance  attached  to 
it,  is  a  homage  to  personal  and  incommunicable  prop 
erties.  Frivolous  and  fantastic  additions  have  got 
associated  with  the  name,  but  the  steady  interest  of 
mankind  in  it  must  be  attributed  to  the  valuable 
properties  which  it  designates.  An  element  which 
unites  all  the  most  forcible  persons  of  every  country; 
makes  them  intelligible  and  agreeable  to  each  other, 
and  is  somewhat  so  precise,  that  it  is  at  once  felt  if 
an  individual  lack  the  masonic  sign,  cannot  be  any 
casual  product,  but  must  be  an  average  result  of 
the  character  and  faculties  universally  found  in  men. 
It  seems  a  certain  permanent  average  ;  as  the  atmos 
phere  is  a  permanent  composition,  whilst  so  many 
gases  are  combined  only  to  be  decompounded. 
Oomme  il  /ant,  is  the  Frenchman's  description  of 
good  society,  as  we  must  be.  It  is  a  spontaneous 
fruit  of  talents  and  feelings  of  precisely  that  class 
who  have  most  vigor,  who  take  the  lead  in  the 
world  of  this  hour,  and,  though  far  from  pure,  far 
from  constituting  the  gladdest  and  highest  tone  of 


122  ESSAY  nr. 

human  feeling,  is  as  good  as  the  whole  society  per* 
mits  it  to  be.  It  is  made  of  the  spirit,  more  than  of 
the  talent  of  men,  and  is  a  compound  result,  into 
which  every  great  force  enters  as  an  ingredient, 
namely,  virtue,  wit,  beauty,  wealth,  and  power. 

There  is  something  equivocal  in  all  the  words  in 
use  to  express  the  excellence  of  manners  and  social 
cultivation,  because  the  quantities  are  fluxional,  and 
the  last  effect  is  assumed  by  the  senses  as  the  cause. 
The  word  gentleman  has  not  any  correlative  abstract 
to  express  the  quality.  Gentility  is  mean,  and 
gentilesse  is  obsolete.  But  we  must  keep  alive  in  the 
vernacular,  the  distinction  between  fashion,  a  word 
of  narrow  and  often  sinister  meaning,  and  the  heroic 
character  which  the  gentleman  imports.  The  usual 
words,  however,  must  be  respected :  they  will  be 
found  to  contain  the  root  of  the  matter.  The  point 
of  distinction  in  all  this  class  of  names,  as  courtesy, 
chivalry,  fashion,  and  the  like,  is,  that  the  flower 
and  fruit,  not  the  grain  of  the  tree,  are  contem 
plated.  It  is  beauty  which  is  the  aim  this  time,  and 
not  worth.  The  result  is  now  in  question,  although 
our  words  intimate  well  enough  the  popular  feeling, 
that  the  appearance  supposes  a  substance.  The 
gentleman  is  a  man  of  truth,  lord  of  his  own  actions, 
and  expressing  that  lordship  in  his  behavior,  not  in 


MANNERS.  123 

any  manner  dependent  and  servile  either  on  persons, 
or  opinions,  or  possessions.  Beyond  this  fact  of 
truth  and  real  force,  the  word  denotes  good-nature 
or  benevolence :  manhood  first,  and  then  gentleness. 
The  popular  notion  certainly  adds  a  condition  of 
ease  and  fortune ;  but  that  is  a  natural  result  of  per 
sonal  force  and  love,  that  they  should  possess  and 
dispense  the  goods  of  the  world.  In  times  of  vio 
lence,  every  eminent  person  must  fall  in  with  many 
opportunities  to  approve  his  stoutness  and  worth ; 
therefore  every  man's  name  that  emerged  at  all  from 
the  mass  in  the  feudal  ages,  rattles  in  our  ear  like  a 
flourish  of  trumpets.  But  personal  force  never  goes 
out  of  fashion.  That  is  still  paramount  to-day,  and, 
in  the  moving  crowd  of  good  society,  the  men  of 
valor  and  reality  are  known,  and  rise  to  their  natural 
place.  The  competition  is  transferred  from  war  to 
politics  and  trade,  but  the  personal  force  appears 
readily  enough  in  these  new  arenas. 

Power  first,  or  no  leading  class.  In  politics  and 
in  trade,  bruisers  and  pirates  are  of  better  promise 
than  talkers  and  clerks.  God  knows  that  all  sorts 
of  gentlemen  knock  at  the  door;  but  whenever  used 
in  strictness,  and  with  any  emphasis,  the  name  will 
be  found  to  point  at  original  energy.  It  describes  a 
man  standing  in  his  own  right,  and  working  after 


124  ESSAY  IV. 

untaught  methods.  In  a  good  lord,  there  must  first 
be  a  good  animal,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  yielding 
the  incomparable  advantage  of  animal  spirits.  The 
ruling  class  must  have  more,  but  they  must  have 
these,  giving  in  every  company  the  sense  of  power, 
which  makes  things  easy  to  be  done  which  daunt  the 
wise.  The  society  of  the  energetic  class,  in  their 
friendly  and  festive  meetings,  is  full  of  courage,  and 
of  attempts,  which  intimidate  the  pale  scholar.  The 
courage  which  girls  exhibit  is  like  a  battle  of  Lundy's 
Lane,  or  a  sea-fight.  The  intellect  relies  on  memory 
Co  make  some  supplies  to  face  these  extemporaneous 
squadrons.  But  memory  is  a  base  mendicant  with 
basket  and  badge,  in  the  presence  of  these  sudden 
masters.  The  rulers  of  society  must  be  up  to  the 
work  of  the  world,  and  equal  to  their  versatile  office  : 
men  of  the  right  Caesarian  pattern,  who  have  great 
range  of  affinity.  I  am  far  from  believing  the  timid 
maxim  of  Lord  Falkland,  ("  that  for  ceremony  there 
must  go  two  to  it ;  since  a  bold  fellow  will  go  through 
the  cunningest  forms,")  and  am  of  opinion  that  the 
gentleman  is  the  bold  fellow  whose  forms  are  not  to 
be  broken  through ;  and  only  that  plenteous  nature 
is  rightful  master,  which  is  the  complement  of  what 
ever  person  it  converses  with.  My  gentleman  gives 
the  law  where  he  is ;  he  will  outpray  saints  in  chapel, 


MANNERS.  125 

outgeneral  veterans  in  the  field,  and  outshine  all 
courtesy  in  the  hall.  He  is  good  company  for  pi 
rates,  and  good  with  academicians  ;  so  that  it  is  use 
less  to  fortify  yourself  against  him ;  he  has  the  pri 
vate  entrance  to  all  minds,  and  I  could  as  easily  ex 
clude  myself,  as  him.  The  famous  gentlemen  of 
Asia  and  Europe  have  been  of  this  strong  type  : 
Saladin,  Sapor,  the  Cid,  Julius  Caesar,  Scipio,  Alex 
ander,  Pericles,  and  the  lordliest  personages.  They 
sat  very  carelessly  in  their  chairs,  and  were  too  ex 
cellent  themselves,  to  value  any  condition  at  a  high 
rate. 

A  plentiful  fortune  is  reckoned  necessary,  in  the 
popular  judgment,  to  the  completion  of  this  man  of 
the  world :  and  it  is  a  material  deputy  which  walks 
through  the  dance  which  the  first  has  led.  Money  is 
not  essential,  but  this  wide  affinity  is,  which  trans 
cends  the  habits  of  clique  and  caste,  and  makes  itself 
felt  by  men  of  all  classes.  If  the  aristocrat  is  only 
valid  in  fashionable  circles,  and  not  with  truckmen, 
he  will  never  be  a  leader  in  fashion ;  and  if  the  man 
of  the  people  cannot  speak  on  equal  terms  with  the 
gentleman,  so  that  the  gentleman  shall  perceive  that 
he  is  already  really  of  his  own  order,  he  is  not  to  be 
feared.  Diogenes,  Socrates,  and  Epaminondas,  are 
gentlemen  of  the  best  blood,  who  have  chosen  the 


126  ESSAY  IV. 

condition  of  poverty,  when  that  of  wealth  was 
equally  open  to  them.  I  use  these  old  names,  but 
the  men  I  speak  of  are  my  contemporaries.  Fortune 
will  not  supply  to  every  generation  one  of  these  well- 
appointed  knights,  but  every  collection  of  men  fur 
nishes  some  example  of  the  class  :  and  the  politics  of 
this  country,  and  the  trade  of  every  town,  are  con 
trolled  by  these  hardy  and  irresponsible  doers,  who 
have  invention  to  take  the  lead,  and  a  broad  sym 
pathy  which  puts  them  in  fellowship  with  crowds, 
and  makes  their  action  popular. 

The  manners  of  this  class  are  observed  and  caught 
with  devotion  by  men  of  taste.  The  association  of 
these  masters  with  each  other,  and  with  men  intelli 
gent  of  their  merits,  is  mutually  agreeable  and 
stimulating.  The  good  forms,  the  happiest  expres 
sions  of  each,  are  repeated  and  adopted.  By  swift 
consent,  everything  superfluous  is  dropped,  every 
thing  graceful  is  renewed.  Fine  manners  show 
themselves  formidable  to  the  uncultivated  man. 
They  are  a  subtler  science  of  defence  to  parry  and 
intimidate ;  but  once  matched  by  the  skill  of  the 
other  party,  they  drop  the  point  of  the  sword, — 
points  and  fences  disappear,  and  the  youth  finds  him 
self  in  a  more  transparent  atmosphere,  wherein  life 
is  a  less  troublesome  game,  and  not  a  misunderstand- 


MANNERS.  127 

ing  rises  between  the  players.  Manners  aim  to 
facilitate  life,  to  get  rid  of  impediments,  and  bring 
the  man  pure  to  energize.  They  aid  our  dealing  and 
conversation,  as  a  railway  aids  traveling,  by  getting 
rid  of  all  avoidable  obstructions  of  the  road,  and 
leaving  nothing  to  be  conquered  but  pure  space 
These  forms  very  soon  become  fixed  and  a  fine  sense 
of  propriety  is  cultivated  with  the  more  heed,  that  it 
becomes  a  badge  of  social  and  civil  distinctions. 
Thus  grows  up  Fashion,  an  equivocal  semblance,  the 
most  puissant,  the  most  fantastic  and  frivolous,  the 
most  feared  and  followed,  and  which  morals  and 
violence  assault  in  vain. 

There  exists  a  strict  relation  between  the  class  of 
power,  and  the  exclusive  and  polished  circles.  The 
last  are  always  filled  or  filling  from  the  first.  The 
strong  men  usually  give  some  allowance  even  to  the 
petulances  of  fashion,  for  that  affinity  they  find  in  it. 
Napoleon,  child  of  the  revolution,  destroyer  of  the 
old  noblesse,  never  ceased  to  court  the  Faubourg  St. 
Germain :  doubtless  with  the  feeling,  that  fashion  is 
a  homage  to  men  of  his  stamp,,  Fashion,  though  in 
a  strange  way,  represents  all  manly  virtue.  It  is 
virtue  gone  to  seed  :  it  is  a  kind  of  posthumous 
honor.  It  does  not  often  caress  the  great,  but  the 
children  of  the  great :  it  is  a  hall  of  the  Past.  It 


128  ESSAY   IV. 

usually  sets  its  face  against  the  great  of  this  hour, 
Great  men  are  not  commonly  in  its  halls :  they  are 
absent  in  the  field :  they  are  working,  not  triumph 
ing.  Fashion  is  made  up  of  their  children  ;  of  those, 
who,  through  the  value  and  virtue  of  somebody,  have 
acquired  lustre  to  their  name,  marks  of  distinction, 
means  of  cultivation  and  generosity,  and,  in  their 
physical  organization,  a  certain  health  and  excellence, 
which  secures  to  them,  if  not  the  highest  power  to 
work,  yet  high  power  to  enjoy.  The  class  of  power, 
the  working  heroes,  the  Cortez,  the  Nelson,  the  Na 
poleon,  see  that  this  is  the  festivity  and  permanent 
celebration  of  such  as  they ;  that  fashion  is  funded 
talent;  is  Mexico,  Marengo,  and  Trafalgar  beaten 
out  thin  ;  that  the  brilliant  names  of  fashion  run 
back  to  just  such  busy  names  as  their  own,  fifty  or 
sixty  years  ago.  They  are  the  sowers,  their  sons 
shall  be  the  reapers,  and  their  sons,  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  things,  must  yield  the  possession  of  the 
harvest  to  new  competitors  with  keener  eyes  and 
stronger  frames.  The  city  is  recruited  from  the 
country.  In  the  year  1805,  it  is  said,  every  legit 
imate  monarch  in  Europe  was  imbecile.  The  city 
would  have  died  out,  rotted, 'and  exploded,  long  ago, 
but  that  it  was  reinforced  from  the  fields.  It  is  only 


MANNERS.  129 

country  which  came  to  town  day  tiefore  yesterday, 
that  is  city  and  court  to-day. 

Aristocracy  and  fashion  are  certain  inevitable  re 
sults.  These  mutual  selections  are  indestructible. 
If  they  provoke  anger  in  the  least  favored  class,  and 
the  excluded  majority  revenge  themselves  on  the 
excluding  minority,  by  the  strong  hand,  and  kill 
them,  at  once  a  new  class  finds  itself  at  the  top,  as 
certainly  as  cream  rises  in  a  bowl  of  milk :  and  if 
the  people  should  destroy  class  after  class,  until  two 
men  only  were  left,  one  of  these  would  be  the  leader 
and  would  be  involuntarily  served  and  copied  by 
the  other.  You  may  keep  this  minority  out  of  sight 
and  out  of  mind,  but  it  is  tenacious  of  life,  and  is 
one  of  the  estates  of  the  realm.  I  am  the  more 
struck  with  this  tenacity,  when  I  see  its  work.  It 
respects  the  administration  of  such  unimportant  mat 
ters,  that  we  should  not  look  for  any  durability  in  its 
rule.  We  sometimes  meet  men  under  some  strong 
moral  influence,  as,  a  patriotic,  a  literary,  a  religious 
movement,  and  feel  that  the  moral  sentiment  rules 
man  and  nature.  We  think  all  other  distinctions 
and  ties  will  be  slight  and  fugitive,  this  of  caste  or 
fashion,  for  example ;  yet  come  from  year  to  year, 
and  see  how  permanent  that  is,  in  this  Boston  or 

New   York  life   of  man,   where,  too,  it  has  not  the 
9 


130  ESSAY  IV. 

least  countenance  from  the  law  of  the  land.  Not  in 
Egypt  or  in  India  a  firmer  or  more  impassable  line. 
Here  are  associations  whose  ties  go  over,  and  under, 
and  through  it,  a  meeting  of  merchants,  a  military 
corps,  a  college -class,  a  fire-club,  a  professional  asso 
ciation,  a  political,  a  religious  convention  ; — the  per 
sons  seem  to  draw  inseparably  near ;  yet,  that  as 
sembly  once  dispersed,  its  members  will  not  in  the 
year  meet  again.  Each  returns  to  his  degree  in  the 
scale  of  good  society,  porcelain  remains  porcelain, 
and  earthen  earthen.  The  objects  of  fashion  may 
be  frivolous,  or  fashion  may  be  objectless,  but  the 
nature  of  this  union  and  selection  can  be  neither 
frivolous  nor  accidental.  Each  man's  rank  in  that 
perfect  graduation  depends  on  some  symmetry  in  his 
structure,  or  some  agreement  in  his  structure  to  the 
symmetry  of  society.  Its  doors  unbar  instantane 
ously  to  a  natural  claim  of  their  own  kind.  A  nat 
ural  gentleman  finds  his  way  in,  and  will  keep  the 
oldest  patrician  out,  who  has  lost  his  intrinsic  rank. 
Fashion  understands  itself;  good-breeding  and  per 
sonal  superiority  of  whatever  country  readily  frater 
nize  with  those  of  every  other.  The  chiefs  of  savage 
tribes  have  distinguished  themselves  in  London  and 
Paris,  by  the  purity  of  their  tournure. 
To  say  what  good  of  fashion  we  can, — it  rests  ori 


MANNERS.  131 

reality,  and  hates  nothing  so  much  as  pretenders ; — 
to  exclude  and  mystify  pretenders,  and  send  them 
into  everlasting  '  Coventry,'  is  its  delight.  We  con* 
temn,  in  turn,  every  other  gift  of  men  of  the  world  ; 
but  the  habit  even  in  little  aj:d  the  least  matters,  of 
not  appealing  to  any  but  our  own  sense  of  propriety  ^ 
constitutes  the  foundation  of  all  chivalry.  There  is 
almost  no  kind  of  sell-reliance,  so  it  be  sane  and  pro 
portioned,  which  fashion  does  not  occasionally  adopt, 
and  give  it  the  freedom  of  its  saloons.  A  sainted 
soul  is  always  elegant,  and,  if  it  will,  passes  unchal 
lenged  into  the  most  guarded  ring.  But  so  will 
Jock  the  teamster  pass,  in  some  crisis  that  brings 
him  thither,  and  find  favor,  as  long  as  his  head  is 
not  giddy  with  the  new  circumstance,  and  the  iron 
slices  do  not  wish  to  dance  in  waltzes  and  cotillions. 
Foi  there  is  nothing  settled  in  manners,  but  the  laws 
of  behavior  yield  to  the  energy  of  the  individual. 
The  maiden  at  her  first  ball,  the  countryman  at  a 
city  dinner,  believes  that  there  is  a  ritual  according 
to  which  every  act  and  compliment  must  be  per 
formed,  or  the  failing  party  must  be  cast  out  of  this 
presence.  Later,  they  learn  that  good  sense  and 
character  make  their  own  forms  every  moment,  and 
speak  or  abstain,  take  wine  or  refuse  it,  stay  or  go, 
sit  in  a  chair  or  sprawl  with  children  on  the  floor,  or 


ESSAY   TV. 

stand  on  their  head,  or  what  else  soever,  in  a 
and  aboriginal  way  :  and  that  strong  will  is  always 
in  fashion,  let  who  will  be  unfashionable.  All  that 
fashion  demands  is  composure,  and  self-content.  A 
circle  of  men  perfectly  well-bred  would  be  a  com 
pany  of  sensible  persons,  in  which  every  man's  na 
tive  manners  and  character  appeared.  If  the  fash- 
ionist  have  not  this  quality,  he  is  nothing.  We  are 
such  lovers  of  self-reliance,  that  we  excuse  in  a  man 
many  sins,  if  he  will  show  us  a  complete  satisfaction 
in  his  position,  which  asks  no  leave  to  be,  of  mine, 
or  any  man's  good  opinion.  But  any  deference  to 
some  eminent  man  or  woman  of  the  world,  forfeits 
all  privilege  of  nobility.  He  is  an  underling  :  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  him  ;  I  will  speak  with  his  mas 
ter.  A  man  should  not  go  where  he  cannot  carry 
his  whole  sphere  or  society  with  him, — not  bodily 
the  whole  circle  of  his  friends,  but  atmospherically. 
He  should  preserve  in  a  new  company  the  same  at 
titude  of  mind  and  reality  of  relation,  which  his 
daily  associates  draw  him  to,  else  he  is  shorn  of  his 
best  beams,  and  will  be  an  orphan  in  the  merriest 
club.  "  If  you  could  see  Vich  Ian  Vohr  with  his 
tail  on  !—  But  Vich  Ian  Vohr  must  always 

carry  his  belongings  in  some  fashion,  if  not  added  aa 
honor,  then  severed  as  disgrace. 


MANNERS.  133 

There  will  always  be  in  society  certain  persons 
who  are  mercuries  of  its  approbation,  and  whose 
glance  will  at  any  time  determine  for  the  curious 
their  standing  in  the  world.  These  are  the  chamber 
lains  of  the  lesser  gods.  Accept  their  coldness  as  an 
omen  of  grace  with  the  loftier  deities,  and  allow 
them  all  their  privilege.  They  are  clear  in  their 
office,  nor  could  they  be  thus  formidable,  without 
their  own  merits.  Bat  do  not  measure  the  import 
ance  of  this  class  by  their  pretension,  or  imagine 
that  a  fop  can  be  the  dispenser  of  honor  and  shame. 
They  pass  also  at  their  just  rate ;  for  how  can  they 
otherwise,  in  circles  which  exist  as  a  sort  of  herald's 
office  for  the  sifting  of  character  ? 

As  the  first  thing  man  requires  of  man,  is  reality, 
so,  that  appears  in  all  the  forms  of  society.  We 
pointedly,  and  by  name,  introduce  the  parties  to  each 
other.  Know  you  before  all  heaven  and  earth,  that 
this  is  Andrew,  and  this  is  Gregory  ; — they  look  each 
other  in  the  eye ;  they  grasp  each  other's  hand,  to 
identify  and  signalize  each  other.  It  is  a  great  satis 
faction.  A  gentleman  never  dodges  :  his  eyes  look 
straight  forward,  and  he  assures  the  other  party,  first 
of  all,  that  he  has  been  met.  For  what  is  it  that 
we  seek,  in  so  many  visits  and  hospitalities  ?  Is  it 
your  draperies,  pictures,  and  decorations?  Or,  do 


134  ESSAY  IV. 

we  not  insatiably  ask,  "Was  a  man  in  the  houue  ?  1 
may  easily  go  into  a  great  household  where  there  is 
much  substance,  excellent  provision  for  comfort, 
luxury,  and  taste,  and  yet  not  encounter  there  any 
Amphitryon,  who  shall  subordinate  these  appendages. 
I  may  go  into  a  cottage,  and  find  a  farmer  who  feels 
that  he  is  the  man  I  have  come  to  see,  and  fronts  me 
accordingly.  It  was  therefore  a  very  natural  point  of 
old  feudal  etiquette,  that  a  gentleman  who  received 
a  visit,  though  it  were  of  his  sovereign,  should  not 
leave  his  roof,  but  should  wait  his  arrival  at  the  door 
of  his  house.  No  house,  though  it  were  the  Tuiller- 
ies,  or  the  Escurial,  is  good  for  anything  without  a 
master.  And  yet  we  are  not  often  gratified  by  this 
hospitality.  Every  body  we  know  surrounds  him 
self  with  a  fine  house,  fine  books,  conservatory,  gar 
dens,  equipage,  and  all  manner  of  toys,  as  screens  to 
interpose  between  himself  and  his  guest.  Does  it 
not  seem  as  if  a  man  was  of  a  very  sly,  elusive  na 
ture,  and  dreaded  nothing  so  much  as  a  full  rencontre 
front  to  front  with  his  fellow?  It  were  unmerciful, 
I  know,  quite  to  abolish  the  use  of  these  screens, 
which  are  of  eminent  convenience,  whether  the  guest 
is  too  great,  or  too  little.  We  call  together  many 
friends  who  keep  each  other  in  play,  or,  by  luxuries 
and  ornaments  we  amuse  the  young  people,  and 


MANNEBS.  135 

guard  our  retirement.  Or  if,  perchance,  a  searching 
realist  comes  to  our  gate,  before  whose  eye  we  have 
no  care  to  stand,  then  again  we  run  to  our  curtain, 
and  hide  ourselves  as  Adam  at  the  voice  of  the  Lord 
God  in  the  garden.  Cardinal  Caprara,  the  Pope's 
legate  at  Paris,  defended  himself  from  the  glances  of 
Napoleon,  by  an  immense  pair  of  green  spectacles. 
Napoleon  remarked  them,  and  speedily  managed  to 
rally  them  off:  and  yet  Napoleon,  in  his  turn,  was 
not  great  enough  with  eight  hundred  thousand  troops 
at  his  back,  to  face  a  pair  of  freeborn  eyes,  but 
fenced  himself  with  etiquette,  and  within  triple  bar* 
riers  of  reserve :  and,  as  all  the  world  knows  from 
Madame  de  Stael,  was  wont,  when  he  found  himself 
observed,  to  discharge  his  face  of  all  expression. 
But  emperors  and  rich  men  are  by  no  means  the 
most  skilful  masters  of  good  manners.  No  rentroll 
nor  army-list  can  dignify  skulking  and  dissimulation : 
and  the  first  point  of  courtesy  must  always  be  truth, 
as  really  all  the  forms  of  good-breeding  point  that 
way. 

I  have  just  been  reading,  in  Mr.  Hazlitt's  transla 
tion,  Montaigne's  account  of  his  journey  into  Italy, 
and  am  struck  with  nothing  more  agreeably  than  the 
self-respecting  fashions  of  the  time.  His  arrival  in 
each  place  the  arrival  of  a  gentleman  of  France,  is  an 


136  ESSAY  IV. 

event  of  some  consequence.  Wherever  he  goes,  he 
pays  a  visit  to  whatever  prince  or  gentleman  of  note 
resides  upon  his  road,  as  a  duty  to  himself  and  to 
civilization.  When  he  leaves  any  house  in  which  he 
has  lodged  for  a  few  weeks,  he  causes  his  arms  to  be 
painted  and  hung  up  as  a  perpetual  sign  to  the  house 
as  was  the  custom  of  gentlemen. 

The  complement  of  this  graceful  self-respect,  and 
that  of  all  the  points  of  good  breeding  I  most  require 
arid  insist  upon,  is  deference.  I  like  that  every  chair 
should  be  a  throne,  and  hold  a  king.  I  prefer  a 
tendency  to  stateliness,  to  an  excess  of  fellowship. 
Let  the  incommunicable  objects  of  nature  and  the 
metaphysical  isolation  of  man  teach  us  independence. 
Let  us  not  be  too  much  acquainted.  I  would  have  a 
man  enter  his  house  through  a  hall  rilled  with  heroic 
and  sacred  sculptures,  that  he  might  not  want  the 
hint  of  tranquillity  and  self-poise.  We  should  meet 
each  morning,  as  from  foreign  countries,  and  spend 
ing  the  day  together,  should  depart  at  night,  as 
into  foreign  countries.  In  all  things  I  would  have 
the  island  of  a  man  inviolate.  Let  us  sit  apart 
as  the  gods,  talking  from  peak  to  peak  all  round 
Olympus.  No  degree  of  affection  need  invade  this 
religion.  This  is  myrrh  and  rosemary  to  keep  the 
other  sweet.  Lovers  should  guard  their  strangeness. 


MANNERS.  137 

If  they  forgive  too  much,  all  slides  into  confusion  and 
meanness.  It  is  easy  to  push  this  deference  to  a 
Chinese  etiquette  ;  but  coolness  and  absence  of  heat 
and  haste  indicate  fine  qualities.  A  gentleman 
makes  no  noise  :  a  lady  is  serene.  Proportionate  is 
our  disgust  at  those  invaders  who  fill  a  studious 
house  with  blast  and  running,  to  secure  some  paltry 
convenience.  Not  less  I  dislike  a  low  sympathy  of 
tach  with  his  neighbors  needs.  Must  we  have  a 
good  understanding  with  one  another's  palates  ?  as 
foolish  people  who  have  lived  long  together,  know 
when  each  wants  salt  or  sugar.  I  pray  my  com 
panion,  if  he  wishes  for  bread,  to  ask  me  for  bread, 
and  if  he  wishes  for  sassafras  or  arsenic,  to  ask  me 
for  them,  and  not  to  hold  out  his  plate,  as  if  I  knew 
already.  Every  natural  function  can  be  dignified 
by  deliberation  and  privacy.  Let  us  leave  hurry  to 
slaves.  The  compliments  and  ceremonies  of  our 
breeding  should  signify,  however  remotely,  the  rec 
ollection  of  the  grandeur  of  our  destiny. 

The  flower  of  courtesy  does  not  very  well  bide 
handling,  but  if  we  dare  to  open  another  leaf,  and 
explore  what  parts  go  to  its  conformation,  we  shall 
find  also  an  intellectual  quality.  To  the  leaders  of 
men,  the  brain  as  well  as  the  flesh  and  the  heart 
must  furnish  a  proportion.  Defect  in  manners  is 


138  ESSAY  rVo 

usually  the  defect  of  fine  perceptions.  Men  are  too 
coarsely  made  for  the  delicacy  of  beautiful  carriage 
and  customs.  It  is  not  quite  sufficient  to  good- 
breeding,  a  union  of  kindness  and  independence. 
We  imperatively  require  a  perception  of,  and  a  horn- 
age  to  beauty  in  our  companions.  Other  virtues  are 
in  request  in  the  field  and  workyard,  but  a  certain 
degree  of  taste  is  not  to  be  spared  in  those  we  sit 
with.  I  could  better  eat  with  one  who  did  not  re 
spect  the  truth  or  the  laws,  than  with  a  sloven  and 
unpresentable  person.  Moral  qualities  rule  the 
world,  but  at  short  distances,  the  senses  are  despotic. 
The  same  discrimination  of  fit  and  fair  runs  out,  if 
with  less  rigor,  into  all  parts  of  life.  The  average 
spirit  of  the  energetic  class  is  good  sense,  acting  un 
der  certain  limitations  and  to  certain  ends.  It  en 
tertains  every  natural  gift.  Social  in  its  nature,  it 
respects  everything  which  tends  to  unite  men.  It 
delights  in  measure.  The  love  of  beauty  is  mainly 
the  love  of  measure  or  proportion.  The  person  who 
screams,  or  uses  the  superlative  degree,  or  converses 
with  heat,  puts  whole  drawing-rooms  to  flight.  If 
you  wish  to  be  loved,  love  measure.  You  must  have 
genius,  or  a  prodigious  usefulness,  if  you  will  hide 
the  want  of  measure.  This  perception  comes  in  to 
polish  and  perfect  the  parts  of  the  social  instrument. 


MANNEES.  139 

Society  will  pardon  much  to  genius  and  special  gifts, 
but,  being  in  its  nature  a  convention,  it  loves  what 
is  conventional,  or  what  belongs  to  coming  together. 
That  makes  the  good  and  bad  of  manners,  namely, 
what  helps  or  hinders  fellowship.  For,  fashion  is 
not  good  sense  absolute,  but  relative ;  not  good  sense 
private,  but  good  sense  entertaining  company.  It 
hates  corners  and  sharp  points  of  character,  hates 
quarrelsome,  egotistical,  solitary,  and  gloomy  peo 
ple  ;  hates  whatever  can  interfere  with  total  blend 
ing  of  parties  ;  whilst  it  values  all  peculiarities  as  in 
the  highest  degree  refreshing,  which  can  consist  with 
good  fellowship.  And  besides  the  general  infusion 
of  wit  to  heighten  civility,  the  direct  splendor  of  in 
tellectual  power  is  ever  welcome  in  fine  society  as 
the  costliest  addition  to  its  rule  and  its  credit. 

The  dry  light  must  shine  in  to  adorn  our  festival, 
but  it  must  be  tempered  and  shaded,  or  that  will  also 
offend.  Accuracy  is  essential  to  beauty,  and  quick 
perceptions  to  politeness,  but  not  too  quick  percep 
tions.  One  may  be  too  punctual  and  too  precise. 
He  must  leave  the  omniscience  of  business  at  the 
door,  when  he  comes  into  the  palace  of  beauty.  So 
ciety  loves  Creole  natures,  and  sleepy,  languishing 
manners,  so  that  they  cover  sense,  grace,  and  good 
will  ;  the  air  of  drowsy  strength,  which  disarms  crit> 


140  ESSAY  IV. 

icism ;  perhaps,  because  such  a  person  seems  to  re> 
serve  himself  for  the  best  of  the  game,  and  not  spend 
himself  on  surfaces  ;  an  ignoring  eye,  which  does  not 
see  the  annoyances,  shifts,  and  inconveniences,  that 
cloud  the  brow  and  smother  the  voice  of  the  sensi 
tive. 

Therefore,  besides  personal  force  and  so  much 
perception  as  constitutes  unerring  taste,  society  de 
mands  in  its  patrician  class,  another  element  already 
intimated,  which  it  significantly  terms  good-nature, 
expressing  all  degrees  of  generosity,  from  the  lowest 
willingness  and  faculty  to  oblige,  up  to  the  heights 
of  magnanimity  and  love.  Insight  we  must  have,  or 
we  shall  run  against  one  another,  and  miss  the  way 
to  our  food  ;  but  intellect  is  selfish  and  barren.  The 
secret  of  success  in  society,  is  a  certain  heartiness 
and  sympathy.  A  man  who  is  not  happy  in  the 
company,  cannot  find  any  word  in  his  memory  that 
will  fit  the  occasion.  All  his  information  is  a  little 
impertinent,  A  man  who  is  happy  there,  finds  in 
every  turn  of  the  conversation  equally  lucky  occa 
sions  for  the  introduction  of  that  which  he  has  to  say. 
The  favorites  of  society,  and  what  it  calls  whole  souls, 
are  able  men,  and  of  more  spirit  than  wit,  who  have 
no  uncomfortable  egotism,  but  who  exactly  fill  the 
hour  and  the  company,  contented  and  contenting,  at 


MANNEBS.  141 

a  marriage  or  a  funeral,  a  ball  or  a  jury,  a  water* 
party  or  a  shooting-match.  England,  which  is  rich 
in  gentlemen,  furnished,  in  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century,  a  good  model  of  that  genius  which 
the  world  loves,  in  Mr.  Fox,  who  added  to  his  great 
abilities  the  most  social  disposition,  and  real  love  of 
men.  Parliamentary  history  has  few  better  passages 
than  the  debate,  in  which  Burke  and  Fox  separated 
in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  when  Fox  urged  on  his 
old  friend  the  claims  of  old  friendship  with  such  ten 
derness,  that  the  house  was  moved  to  tears.  Another 
anecdote  is  so  close  to  my  matter,  that  I  must  hazard 
the  story.  A  tradesman  who  had  long  dunned  him 
for  a  note  of  three  hundred  guineas,  found  him  one 
day  counting  gold,  and  demanded  payment :  "  No,'> 
said  Fox,  "  I  owe  this  money  to  Sheridan :  it  is  a 
debt  of  honor  :  if  an  accident  should  happen  to  me, 
he  has  nothing  to  show."  "  Then,"  said  the  credi 
tor,  "  I  change  my  debt  into  a  debt  of  honor,"  and 
tore  the  note  in  pieces.  Fox  thanked  the  man  for 
his  confidence,  and  paid  him,  saying,  "  his  debt  was 
of  older  standing,  and  Sheridan  must  wait."  Lover 
of  liberty,  friend  of  the  Hindoo,  friend  of  the  African 
slave,  he  possessed  a  great  personal  popularity  ;  and 
Napoleon  said  of  him  on  the  occasion  of  his  visit  to 


142  ESSAY   IV. 

Paris,  in  1805,  "  Mr.  Fox  will  always  hold  the  first 
place  in  an  assembly  at  the  Tuileries." 

We  may  easily  seem  ridiculous  in  our  eulogy  of 
courtesy,  whenever  we  insist  on  benevolence  as  its 
foundation.  The  painted  phantasm  Fashion  rises  to 
cast  a  species  of  derision  on  what  we  say.  But  I 
will  neither  be  driven  from  some  allowance  to  Fashion 
as  a  symbolic  institution,  nor  from  the  belief  that 
love  is  the  basis  of  courtesy.  We  must  obtain  that, 
if  we  can  ;  but  by  all  means  we  must  affirm  this. 
Life  owes  much  of  its  spirit  to  these  sharp  contrasts. 
Fashion  which  affects  to  be  honor,  is  often,  in  all 
men's  experience,  only  a  ballroom-code.  Yet,  so 
Jong  as  it  is  the  highest  circle,  in  the  imagination  of 
the  best  heads  on  the  planet,  there  is  something 
necessary  and  excellent  in  it ;  for  it  is  not  to  be  sup 
posed  that  men  have  agreed  to  be  the  dupes  of  any 
thing  preposterous ;  and  the  respect  which  these 
mysteries  inspire  in  the  most  rude  and  sylvan  char 
acters,  and  the  curiosity  with  which  details  of  high 
life  are  read,  betray  the  universality  of  the  love  of 
cultivated  manners.  I  know  that  a  comic  disparity 
would  be  felt,  if  we  should  enter  the  acknowledged 
'  first  circles,'  and  apply  these  terrific  standards  of 
justice,  beauty,  and  benefit,  to  the  individuals  actually 
found  there.  Monarchs  and  heroes,  sages  and  lovers, 


MANNERS.  148 

these  gallants  are  not.  Fashion  has  many  cksses 
and  many  rules  of  probation  and  admission  ;  and  not 
the  best  alone.  There  is  not  only  the  right  of  con 
quest,  which  genius  pretends, — the  individual,  dem 
onstrating  his  natural  aristocracy  best  of  the  best ; — 
but  less  claims  will  pass  for  the  time ;  for  Fashion 
loves  lions,  and  points,  like  Circe,  to  her  horned 
company.  This  gentleman  is  this  afternoon  arrived 
from  Denmark  ;  and  that  is  my  Lord  Ride,  who 
came  }resterday  from  Bagdat ;  here  is  Captain  Friese, 
from  Cape  Turnagain  ;  and  Captain  Symmes,  from 
the  interior  of  the  earth  ;  and  Monsieur  Jovaire,  who 
came  down  this  morning  in  a  balloon  ;  Mr.  Hobnail, 
the  reformer  ;  and  Reverend  Jul  Bat,  who  has  con 
verted  the  whole  torrid  zone  in  his  Sunday  school ; 
and  Signor  Torre  del  Greco,  who  extinguished  Vesu 
vius  by  pouring  into  it  the  Bay  of  Naples ;  Spahi, 
the  Persian  ambassador ;  and  Tul  Wil  Shan,  the 
exiled  nabob  of  Nepaul,  whose  saddle  is  the  new 
moon. — But  these  are  monsters  of  one  day,  and  to 
morrow  will  be  dismissed  to  their  holes  and  dens ; 
for,  in  these  rooms,  every  chair  is  waited  for.  The 
artist,  the  scholar,  and,  in  general,  the  clerisy,  wins 
its  way  up  into  these  places,  and  gets  represented 
here,  somewhat  on  this  footing  of  conquest.  Another 
mode  is  to  pass  through  all  the  degrees,  spending  a 


144  ESSAY   IV. 

year  and  a  day  iu  St.  Michael's  Square,  being  steeped 
in  Cologne  water,  and  perfumed,  and  dined,  and  in 
troduced,  and  properly  grounded  in  all  the  biography, 
and  politics,  and  anecdotes  of  the  boudoirs. 

Yet  these  fineries  may  have  grace  and  wit.  Let 
there  be  grotesque  sculpture  about  the  gates  and 
offices  of  temples.  Let  the  creed  and  commandments 
even  have  the  saucy  homage  of  parody.  The  forms 
of  politeness  universally  express  benevolence  in 
superlative  degrees.  What  if  they  are  in  the  mouths 
of  selfish  men,  and  used  as  means  of  selfishness  ? 
What  if  the  false  gentleman  almost  bows  the  true 
out  of  the  world  ?  What  if  the  false  gentleman  con 
trives  so  to  address  his  companion,  as  civilly  to  ex 
clude  all  others  from  his  discourse,  and  also  to  make 
them  feel  excluded  ?  Real  service  will  not  lose  its 
nobleness.  All  generosity  is  not  merely  French  and 
sentimental ;  nor  is  it  to  be  concealed,  that  living 
blood  and  a  passion  of  kindness  does  at  last  distin 
guish  God's  gentleman  from  Fashion's.  The  epitaph 
of  Sir  Jenkin  Grout  is  not  wholly  unintelligible  to 
the  present  age.  "  Here  lies  Sir  Jenkin  Grout,  who 
loved  his  friend,  and  persuaded  his  enemy :  what  his 
mouth  ate,  his  hand  paid  for :  what  his  servants 
robbed,  he  restored :  if  a  woman  gave  him  pleasure, 
he  supported  her  in  pain :  he  never  forgot  his  chil* 


MANNERS.  145 

dren :  and  whoso  touched  his  finger,  drew  after  it 
his  whole  body."  Even  the  line  of  heroes  is  not 
utterly  extinct.  There  is  still  ever  some  admirable 
person  in  plain  clothes,  standing  on  the  wharf,  who 
jumps  in  to  rescue  a  drowning  man ;  there  is  still 
some  absurd  inventor  of  charities ;  some  guide  and 
comforter  of  runaway  slaves  ;  some  friend  of  Poland ; 
some  Philhellene ;  some  fanatic  who  plants  shade" 
trees  for  the  second  and  third  generation,  and 
orchards  when  he  is  grown  old ;  some  well-concealed 
piety  ;  some  just  man  happy  in  an  ill-fame  ;  some 
youth  ashamed  of  the  favors  of  fortune,  and  impa 
tiently  casting  them  on  other  shoulders.  Arid  these 
are  the  centres  of  society,  on  which  it  returns  for 
fresh  impulses.  These  are  the  creators  of  Fashion, 
which  is  an  attempt  to  organize  beauty  of  behavior. 
The  beautiful  and  the  generous  are,  in  the  theory, 
the  doctors  and  apostles  of  this  church  :  Scipio,  and 
the  Cid,  and  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  Washington, 
and  every  pure  and  valiant  heart,  who  worshipped 
Beauty  by  word  and  by  deed.  The  persons  who 
constitute  the  natural  aristocracy,  are  not  found  in 
the  actual  aristocracy,  or,  only  on  its  edge  ;  as  the 
chemical  energy  of  the  spectrum  is  found  to  be 
greatest  just  outside  of  the  spectrum.  Yet  that  is 
the  infhmity  of  the  seneschals,  who  do  not  know 
10 


146  ESSAY  IV. 

their  sovereign,  when  he  appears.  The  theory  of  so 
ciety  supposes  the  existence  and  sovereignty  of  these. 
It  divines  afar  off  their  coming.  It  says  with  the 
elder  gods, — 

"  As  Heaven  and  Earth  are  fairer  far 
Than  Chaos  and  blank  Darkness,  though  once  chiefs; 
And  as  we  show  beyond  that  Heaven  and  Earth, 
In  form  and  shape  compact  and  beautiful ; 
So,  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads  ; 
A  power,  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us, 
And  fated  to  excel  us,  as  we  pass 
In  glory  that  old  Darkness : 

for,  'tis  the  eternal  law, 

That  first  in  beauty  shall  be  first  in  might." 

Therefore,  within  the  ethnical  circle  of  good 
society,  there  is  a  narrower  and  higher  circle,  con 
centration  of  its  light,  and  flower  of  courtesy,  to 
which  there  is  always  a  tacit  appeal  of  pride  and  ref 
erence,  as  to  its  inner  and  imperial  court,  the  par 
liament  of  love  and  chivalry.  And  this  is  constituted 
of  those  persons  in  whom  heroic  dispositions  are  na 
tive,  with  the  love  of  beauty,  the  delight  in  society, 
and  the  power  to  embellish  the  passing  day.  If  the 
individuals  who  compose  the  purest  circles  of  aristoc 
racy  in  Europe,  the  guarded  blood  of  centuries, 
should  pass  in  review,  in  such  manner  as  that  we 


MANNERS.  147 

could,  at  leisure,  and  critically  inspect  their  behavior, 
we  might  find  no  gentleman,  and  no  lady ;  for,  al 
though  excellent  specimens  or  courtesy  and  high- 
breeding  would  gratify  us  in  the  assemblage,  in  the 
particulars,  we  should  detect  offence.  Because,  ele 
gance  comes  of  no  breeding,  but  of  birth.  There 
must  be  romance  of  character,  or  the  most  fastidious 
exclusion  of  impertinencies  will  not  avail.  It  must 
be  genius  which  takes  that  direction :  it  must  be  not 
courteous,  but  courtesy.  High  behavior  is  as  rare 
in  fiction,  as  it  in  fact.  Scott  is  praised  for  the  fidel 
ity  with  which  he  painted  the  demeanor  and  conver 
sation  of  the  superior  classes.  Certainly,  kings  and 
queens,  nobles  and  great  ladies,  had  some  right  to 
complain  of  the  absurdity  that  had  been  put  in  their 
mouths,  before  the  days  of  Waverley ;  but  neither 
does  Scott's  dialogue  bear  criticism.  His  lords  brave 
each  other  in  smart  epigrammatic  speeches,  but  the 
dialogue  is  in  costume,  and  does  not  please  on  the 
second  reading :  it  is  not  warm  with  life.  In  Shaks- 
peare  alone,  the  speakers  do  not  strut  and  bridle,  the 
dialogue  is  easily  great,  and  he  adds  to  so  many  titles 
that  of  being  the  best-bred  man  in  England,  and  in 
Christendom.  Once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime  we  are  per 
mitted  to  enjoy  the  charm  of  noble  manners,  in  the 
presence  of  a  man  or  woman  who  have  no  bar  in 


148  ESSAY  IV. 

their  nature,  but  whose  character  emanates  freely  in 
their  word  and  gesture.  A  beautiful  form  is  better 
than  a  beautiful  face  ;  a  beautiful  behavior  is  better 
than  a  beautiful  form  :  it  gives  a  higher  pleasure 
than  statues  or  pictures ;  it  is  the  finest  of  the  fine 
arts.  A  man  is  but  a  little  thing  in  the  midst  of  the 
objects  of  nature,  yet,  by  the  moral  quality  radiating 
from  his  countenance,  he  may  abolish  all  considera 
tions  of  magnitude,  and  in  his  manners  equal  the 
majesty  of  the  world.  I  have  seen  an  individual, 
whose  mariners,  though  wholly  within  the  conven 
tions  of  elegant  society,  were  never  learned  there, 
but  were  original  and  commanding,  and  held  out  pro 
tection  and  prosperity  ;  one  who  did  not  need  the 
aid  of  a  court-suit,  but  carried  the  holiday  in  his  eye  ; 
who  exhilarated  the  fancy  by  flinging  wide  the  doors 
of  new  modes  of  existence ;  who  shook  off  the  cap 
tivity  of  etiquette,  with  happy,  spirited  bearing, 
good-natured  and  free  as  Robin  Hood  ;  yet  with  the 
port  of  an  emperor, — if  need  be,  calm,  serious,  and 
fit  to  stand  the  gaze  of  millions. 

The  open  air  and  the  fields,  the  street  and  public 
chambers,  are  the  places  where  Man  executes  his 
will ;  let  him  yield  or  divide  the  sceptre  at  the  door 
of  the  house.  Woman,  with  her  instinct  of  behavior, 
instantly  detects  in  man  a  love  of  trifles,  any  cold- 


MANNERS.  149 

hess  or  imbecility,  or,  in  short,  any  want  of  that 
large,  flowing,  and  magnanimous  deportment,  which 
is  indispensable  as  an  exterior  in  the  hall.  Our 
American  institutions  have  been  friendly  to  her,  and 
at  this  moment,  I  esteem  it  a  chief  felicity  of  this 
country,  that  it  excels  in  women.  A  certain  awk- 
ward  consciousness  of  inferiority  in  the  men,  may 
give  rise  to  the  new  chivalry  in  behalf  of  Woman's 
Rights.  Certainly,  let  her  be  as  much  better  placed 
in  the  laws  and  in  social  forms,  as  the  most  zealous 
reformer  can  ask,  but  I  confide  so  entirely  in  her  in 
spiring  and  musical  nature,  that  I  believe  only  her 
self  can  show  us  how  she  shall  be  served.  The 
wonderful  generosity  of  her  sentiments  raises  her  at 
times  into  heroical  and  godlike  regions,  and  verifies 
the  pictures  of  Minerva,  Juno,  or  Polymnia ;  and,  by 
the  firmness  with  which  she  treads  her  upward  path, 
she  convinces  the  coarsest  calculators  that  another 
road  exists,  than  that  which  their  feet  know.  But 
besides  those  who  make  good  in  our  imagination  the 
place  of  muses  and  of  Delphic  Sibyls,  are  there  not 
women  who  fill  our  vase  with  wine  and  roses  to  the 
brim,  so  that  the  wine  runs  over  and  fills  the  house 
with  perfume ;  who  inspire  us  with  courtesy ;  who 
unloose  our  tongues,  and  we  speak;  who  anoint  our 
eyes,  and  we  see  ?  We  say  things  we  never  thought 


150  ESSAY  nr. 

to  have  said  ;  for  once,  our  walls  of  habitual  reserve 
vanished,  and  left  us  at  large  ;  we  were  children  play 
ing  with  children  in  a  wide  field  of  flowers.  Steep 
us,  we  cried,  in  these  influences,  for  days,  for  weeks, 
and  we  shall  be  sunny  poets,  and  will  write  out  in 
many-colored  words  the  romance  that  you  are.  Was 
it  Hafiz  or  Firdousi  that  said  of  his  Persian  Lilla, 
She  was  an  elemental  force,  and  astonished  me  by 
.her  amount  of  life,  when  I  saw  her  day  after  day 
radiating,  every  instant,  redundant  joy  and  grace  on 
all  around  her.  She  was  a  solvent  powerful  to  rec 
oncile  all  heterogeneous  persons  into  one  society: 
like  air  or  water,  an  element  of  such  a  great  range 
of  affinities,  that  it  combines  readily  with  a  thousand 
substances.  Where  she  is  present,  all  others  will  be 
more  than  they  are  wont.  She  was  a  unit  and  whole, 
so  that  whatsoever  she  did,  became  her.  She  had 
too  much  sympathy  and  desire  to  please,  than  that 
you  could  say,  her  manners  were  marked  with 
dignity,  yet  no  princess  could  surpass  her  clear  and 
erect  demeanor  on  each  occasion.  She  did  not  study 
the  Persian  grammar,  nor  the  books  of  the  seven 
poets,  but  all  the  poems  of  the  seven  seemed  to  be 
written  upon  her.  For,  though  the  bias  of  her  nature 
was  not  to  thought,  but  to  sympathy,  yet  was  she  so 
perfect  in  her  own  nature,  as  to  meet  intellectual  pej> 


MANNERS.  151 

sons  by  the  fulness  of  her  heart,  warming  them  by 
her  sentiments ;  believing,  as  she  did,  that  by  deal 
ing  nobly  with  all,  all  would  show  themselves  noble, 

I  know  that  this  Byzantine  pile  of  chivalry  or 
Fashion,  which  seems  so  fair  and  picturesque  to  those 
who  look  at  the  contemporary  facts  for  science  or  for 
entertainment,  is  not  equally  pleasant  to  all  specta 
tors.  The  constitution  of  our  society  makes  it  a 
giant's  castle  to  the  ambitious  youth  who  have  not 
found  their  names  enrolled  in  its  Golden  Book,  and 
whom  it  has  excluded  from  its  coveted  honors  and 
privileges.  They  have  yet  to  learn  that  its  seeming 
grandeur  is  shadowy  and  relative  :  it  is  great  by  their 
allowance  :  its  proudest  gates  will  fly  open  at  the  ap 
proach  of  their  courage  and  virtue.  For  the  present 
distress,  however,  of  those  who  are  predisposed  to 
suffer  from  the  tyrannies  of  this  caprice,  there  are 
easy  remedies.  To  remove  your  residence  a  couple 
of  miles,  or  at  most  four,  will  commonly  relieve  the 
most  extreme  susceptibility.  For,  the  advantages 
which  fashion  values,  are  plants  which  thrive  in  very 
confined  localities,  in  a  few  streets,  namely.  Out  of 
this  precinct,  they  go  for  nothing ;  are  of  no  use  in 
the  farm,  in  the  forest,  in  the  market,  in  war,  in  the 
nuptial  society,  in  the  literary  or  scientific  circle,  at 


152  ESSAY  IV. 

sea,   in    friendship,   in   the   heaven   of    thought   ol 
virtue. 

But  we  have  lingered  long  enough  in  these  painted 
courts.  The  worth  of  the  thing  signified  must 
vindicate  our  taste  for  the  emblem.  Every  thing  that 
is  called  fashion  and  courtesy  humbles  itself  before 
the  cause  and  fountain  of  honor,  creator  of  titles 
and  dignities,  namely,  the  heart  of  love.  This  is  the 
royal  blood,  this  the  fire,  which,  in  all  countries  and 
contingencies,  will  work  after  its  kind,  and  conquer 
arid  expand  all  that  approaches  it.  This  gives  new 
meanings  to  every  fact.  This  impoverishes  the  rich, 
suffering  no  grandeur  but  its  own.  What  is  rich  ? 
Are  you  rich  enough  to  help  anybody  ?  to  succor  the 
unfashionable  and  the  eccentric  ?  rich  enough  to 
make  the  Canadian  in  his  wagon,  the  itinerant  with 
his  consul's  paper  which  commends  him  "To  the 
charitable,"  the  swarthy  Italian  with  his  few  broken 
words  of  English,  the  lame  pauper  hunted  by  over 
seers  from  town  to  town,  even  the  poor  insane  or  be 
sotted  wreck  of  man  or  woman,  feel  the  noble  excep 
tion  of  your  presence  and  your  house,  from  the  general 
bleekness  and  stoniness ;  to  make  such  feel  that  they 
were  greeted  with  a  voice  which  made  them  both 
remember  and  hope  ?  What  is  vulgar,  but  to  refuse 
the  claim  on  acute  and  conclusive  reasons  ?  What 


MANNERS.  153 

is  gentle,  but  to  allow  it,  and  give  their  heart  and 
yours  one  holiday  from  the  national  caution?  With 
out  the  rich  heart,  wealth  is  an  ugly  beggar.  The 
king  of  Schiraz  could  not  afford  to  be  so  bountiful 
as  the  poor  Osman  who  dwelt  at  his  gate.  Osman 
had  a  humanity  so  broad  and  deep,  that  although 
his  speech  was  so  bold  and  free  with  the  Koran,  as 
to  disgust  all  the  dervishes,  yet  was  there  never  a 
poor  outcast,  eccentric,  or  insane  man,  some  fool  who 
had  cut  off  his  beard,  or  who  had  been  mutilated 
under  a  vow,  or  had  a  pet  madness  in  his  brain,  but 
fled  at  once  to  him, — that  great  heart  lay  there  so 
suany  and  hospitable  in  the  centre  of  the  country, 
— that  it  seemed  as  if  the  instinct  of  all  sufferers 
drew  them  to  his  side.  And  the  madness  which  he 
harbored,  he  did  not  share.  Is  not  this  to  be  rich? 
this  only  to  be  rightly  rich? 

But  I  shall  hear  without  pain,  that  I  play  the 
courtier  very  ill,  and  talk  of  that  which  I  do  not 
well  understand.  It  is  easy  to  see,  that  what  is 
called  by  distinction  society  and  fashion,  has  good 
laws  as  well  as  bad,  has  much  that  is  necessary,  and 
much  that  is  absurd.  Too  good  for  banning,  and 
too  bad  for  blessing,  it  reminds  us  of  a  tradition  of 
the  pagan  mythology,  in  any  attempt  to  settle  its 
character.  'I  overheard  Jove,  one  day,'  said 


154  ESSAY  IV. 

Silenus,  '  talking  of  destroying  the  earth ;  he  said, 
it  had  failed ;  they  were  all  rogues  and  vixens,  who 
went  from  bad  to  worse,  as  fast  as  the  days  suc 
ceeded  each  other.  Minerva  said,  she  hoped  not ; 
they  were  only  ridiculous  little  creatures,  with  this 
odd  circumstance,  that  they  had  a  blur,  or  indeterm 
inate  aspect,  seen  far  or  seen  near;  if  you  called 
them  bad,  they  would  appear  so ;  if  you  called  them 
good,  they  would  appear  so ;  and  there  was  no  one 
person  or  action  among  them,  which  would  not 
puzzle  her  owl,  much  more  all  Olympus,  to  know 
whether  it  was  fundamentally  bad  or  good,' 


GIFTS. 


Gifts  of  one  who  loved  me, — 
'T  was  high  time  they  came; 
When  he  ceased  to  love  me, 
Time  they  stopped  for  shame. 


(155) 


ESSAY  V. 
GIFTS. 


IT  is  said  that  the  world  is  in  a  state  of  bank 
ruptcy,  that  the  world  owes  the  world  more  than  the 
world  can  pay,  and  ought  to  go  into  chancery,  and  be 
sold.  I  do  not  think  this  general  insolvency,  which 
involves  in  some  sort  all  the  population,  to  be  the 
reason  of  the  difficulty  experienced  at  Christmas 
and  New  Year,  and  other  times,  in  bestowing  gifts ; 
since  it  is  always  so  pleasant  to  be  generous,  though 
very  vexatious  to  pay  debts.  But  the  impediment 
lies  in  the  choosing.  If,  at  any  time,  it  comes  into 
my  head,  that  a  present  is  due  from  me  to  somebody, 
I  am  puzzled  what  to  give,  until  the  opportunity  is 
gone.  Flowers  and  fruits  are  always  fit  presents; 
flowers,  because  they  are  a  proud  assertion  that  a  ray 
of  beauty  outvalues  all  the  utilities  of  the  world. 
These  gay  natures  contrast  with  the  somewhat  stern 
countenance  of  ordinary  nature  :  they  are  like  music 

heard  out  of  a  work-house.     Nature  does  not  cocker 

(157) 


158  ESSAY  V. 

us :  we  are  children,  not  pets :  she  is  not  fond : 
everything  is  dealt  to  us  without  fear  or  favor,  after 
severe  universal  laws.  Yet  these  delicate  flowers 
look  like  the  frolic  and  interference  of  love  and 
beauty.  Men  use  to  tell  us  that  we  love  flattery 
even  though  we  are  not  deceived  by  it,  because  it 
shows  that  we  are  of  importance  enough  to  be 
courted.  Something  like  that  pleasure,  the  flowers 
give  us :  what  am  I  to  whom  these  sweet  hints  are 
addressed  ?  Fruits  are  acceptable  gifts,  because  they 
are  the  flower  of  commodities,  and  admit  of  fantas 
tic  values  being  attached  to  them.  If  a  man  should 
send  to  me  to  come  a  hundred  miles  to  visit  him,  and 
should  set  before  me  a  basket  of  fine  summer-fruit, 
I  should  think  there  was  some  proportion  between 
the  labor  and  the  reward. 

For  common  gifts,  necessity  makes  pertinences 
and  beauty  every  day,  and  one  is  glad  when  an  im 
perative  leaves  him  no  option,  since  if  the  man  at 
the  door  have  no  shoes,  you  have  not  to  consider 
whether  you  could  procure  him  a  paint-box.  And  as 
it  is  always  pleasing  to  see  a  man  eat  bread,  or  drink 
water,  in  the  house  or  out  of  doors,  so  it  is  always  a 
great  satisfaction  to  supply  these  first  wants.  Neces 
sity  does  everything  well.  In  our  condition  of  uni 
versal  dependence,  it  seems  heroic  to  let  the  petL 


GIFTS.  159 

tioner  be  the  judge  of  his  necessity,  and  to  give  all 
that  is  asked,  though  at  great  inconvenience.  If  it 
be  a  fantastic  desire,  it  is  better  to  leave  to  others 
the  office  of  punishing  him.  I  can  think  of  many 
parts  I  should  prefer  playing  to  that  of  the  Furies. 
Next  to  things  of  necessity,  the  rule  for  a  gift,  which 
one  of  my  friends  prescribed,  is,  that  we  might  con 
vey  to  some  person  that  which  properly  belonged  to 
his  character,  and  was  easily  associated  with  him  in 
thought.  But  our  tokens  of  compliment  and  love 
are  for  the  most  part  barbarous.  Rings  and  other 
jewels  are  not  gifts,  but  apologies  of  gifts.  The  only 
gift  is  a  portion  of  thyself.  Thou  must  bleed 
for  me.  Therefore  the  poet  brings  his  poem ;  the 
shepherd,  his  lamb  ;  the  farmer,  corn ;  the  miner,  a 
gem ;  the  sailor,  coral  and  shells;  the  painter,  his 
picture  ;  the  girl,  a  handkerchief  of  her  own  sewing. 
This  is  right  and  pleasing,  for  it  restores  society  in  so 
far  to  its  primary  basis,  when  a  man's  biography  is  con 
veyed  in  his  gift,  and  every  man's  wealth  is  an  index 
of  his  merit.  But  ifc  is  a  cold,  lifeless  business  when 
you  go  to  the  shops  to  buy  me  something,  which 
does  not  represent  your  life  and  talent,  but  a  gold 
smith's.  This  is  fit  for  kings,  and  rich  men  who  rep 
resent  kings,  and  a  false  state  of  property,  to  make 


160  ESSAY   V. 

presents  of  gold  and  silver  stuffs,  as  a  kind  of  sym 
bolical  sin-offering,  or  payment  of  black-mail. 

The  law  of  benefits  is  a  difficult  channel,  which 
requires  careful  sailing,  or  rude  boats.  It  is  not  the 
office  of  a  man  to  receive  gifts.  How  dare  you  give 
them?  We  wish  to  be  self- sustained.  We  do  not 
quite  forgive  a  giver.  The  hand  that  feeds  us  is  in 
some  danger  of  being  bitten.  We  can  receive  any 
thing  from  love,  for  that  is  a  way  of  receiving  it 
from  ourselves ;  but  not  from  any  one  who  assumes 
to  bestow.  We  sometimes  hate  the  meat  which  we 
eat,  because  there  seems  something  of  degrading  de 
pendence  in  living  by  it. 

"Brother,  if  Jove  to  thee  a  present  make, 

Take  heed  that  from  his  hands  thou  nothing  take." 

We  ask  the  whole.  Nothing  less  will  content  us. 
We  arraign  society,  if  it  do  not  give  us  besides  earth, 
and  fire,  and  water,  opportunity,  love,  reverence 
and  objects  of  veneration. 

He  is  a  good  man,  who  can  receive  a  gift  well. 
We  are  either  glad  or  sorry  at  a  gift,  and  both  emo 
tions  are  unbecoming.  Some  violence,  I  think,  is 
done,  some  degradation  borne,  when  I  rejoice  or 
grieve  at  a  gift.  I  am  sorry  when  my  independence 
is  invaded,  or  when  a  gift  comes  from  such  as  do  not 


GIFTS.  161 

know  my  spirit,  and  so  the  act  is  not  supported  ;  and 
if  the  gift  pleases  me  overmuch,  then  I  should  be 
ashamed  that  the  donor  should  read  my  heart,  and 
see  that  I  love  his  commodity,  and  not  him.  The 
gift,  to  be  true,  must  be  the  flowing  of  the  giver 
unto  me,  correspondent  to  my  flowing  unto  him. 
When  the  waters  are  at  level,  then  my  goods  pass  to 
him,  and  his  to  me.  All  his  are  mine,  all  mine  his. 
I  say  to  him,  How  can  you  give  me  this  pot  of  oil,  or 
this  flagon  of  wine,  when  all  your  oil  and  wine  is 
mine,  which  belief  of  mine  this  gift  seems  to  deny  ? 
Hence  the  fitness  of  beautiful,  not  useful  things  for 
gifts.  This  giving  is  flat  usurpation,  and  therefore 
when  the  beneficiary  is  ungrateful,  as  all  beneficiar 
ies  hate  all  Timons,  not  at  all  considering  the  value 
of  the  gift,  but  looking  back  to  the  greater  store  it 
was  taken  from,  T  rather  sympathize  with  the  bene 
ficiary,  than  with  the  anger  of  my  lord  Timon.  For. 
the  expectation  of  gratitude  is  mean,  and  is  continu 
ally  punished  by  the  total  insensibility  of  the  obliged 
person.  It  is  a  great  happiness  to  get  off  without 
injury  and  heart-burning,  from  one  who  has  had  the 
ill  luck  to  be  served  by  you.  It  is  a  very  onerous 
business,  this  of  being  served,  and  the  debtor  natur 
ally  wishes  to  give  you  a  slap.  A  golden  text  for 

these  gentlemen  is  that  which  I  so  admire  in  the 
11 


162  ESSAY  V. 

Buddhist,  who  never  thanks,  and  who  says,  "Do  not 
flatter  your  benefactors." 

The  reason  of  these  discords  I  conceive  to  be,  that 
there  is  no  commensurability  between  a  man  and  any 
gift.  You  cannot  give  anything  to  a  magnanimous 
person.  After  you  have  served  him,  he  at  once  puts 
you  in  debt  by  his  magnanimity.  The  service  a  man 
renders  his  friend  is  trivial  and  selfish,  compared 
with  the  service  he  knows  his  friend  stood  in  readi 
ness  to  yield  him,  alike  before  he  had  begun  to  serve 
his  friend,  and  now  also.  Compared  with  that  good 
will  I  bear  my  friend,  the  benefit  it  is  in  my  power 
to  render  him  seems  small.  Besides,  our  action  on 
each  other,  good  as  well  as  evil,  is  so  incidental  and 
at  random  that  we  can  seldom  hear  the  acknowledg 
ments  of  any  person  who  would  thank  us  for  a  bene 
fit,  without  some  shame  and  humiliation.  We  can 
rarely  strike  a  direct  stroke,  but  must  be  content 
with  an  oblique  one ;  we  seldom  have  the  satisfac 
tion  of  yielding  a  direct  benefit,  which  is  directly 
received.  But  rectitude  scatters  favors  o.u  every  side 
without  knowing  it,  and  receives  with  wonder  the 
thanks  of  all  people. 

I  fear  to  breathe  any  treason  against  the  majesty 
of  love,  which  is  the  genius  and  god  of  gifts,  and  to 
whom  we  must  not  affect  to  prescribe.  Let  him  give 


GIFTS.  163 

kingdoms  or  flower-leaves  indifferently.  There  are 
persons,  from  whom  we  always  expect  fairy  tokens ; 
let  us  not  cease  to  expect  them.  This  is  prerogative, 
and  not  to  be  limited  by  our  municipal  rules.  For 
the  rest,  I  like  to  see  that  we  cannot  be  bought  and 
sold.  The  best  of  hospitality  and  of  generosity  is 
also  not  in  the  will,  but  in  fate.  I  find  that  I  am  not 
much  to  you;  you  do  not  need  me;  you  do  not  feel 
me;  then  am  I  thrust  out  of  doors, though  you  prof 
fer  me  house  and  lands.  No  services  are  of  any 
value,  but  only  likeness.  When  I  have  attempted 
to  join  myself  to  others  by  services,  it  proved  an  in 
tellectual  trick, — no  more.  They  eat  your  service 
like  apples,  and  leave  you  out.  But  love  them,  and 
they  feel  you,  and  delight  in  you  all  the  time. 


NATURE. 


The  rounded  world  is  fair  to  see, 

Nine  times  folded  in  mystery : 

Though  baffled  seers  cannot  impart 

The  secret  of  its  laboring  heart, 

Throb  thine  with  Nature's  throbbing  breast, 

And  all  is  clear  from  east  to  west. 

Spirit  that  lurks  each  form  within 

Beckons  to  spirit  of  its  kin ; 

Self-kindled  every  atom  glows, 

And  hints  the  future  which  it  owes. 


ESSAY  VI. 
NATTJBE, 


THEUE  are  days  which  occur  in  this  climate,  at 
almost  any  season  of  the  year,  wherein  the  world 
reaches  its  perfection,  when  the  air,  the  heavenly 
bodies,  and  the  earth,  make  a  harmony,  as  if  nature 
would  indulge  her  offspring ;  when,  in  these  bleak 
upper  sides  of  the  planet,  nothing  is  to  desire  that 
we  have  heard  of  the  happiest  latitudes,  and  we  bask 
in  the  shining  hours  of  Florida  and  Cuba ;  when 
everything  that  has  life  gives  sign  of  satisfaction, 
and  the  cattle  that  lie  on  the  ground  seem  to  have 
great  and  tranquil  thoughts.  These  halcyons  may 
be  looked  for  with  a  little  more  assurance  in  that 
pure  October  weather,  which  we  distinguish  by  the 
name  of  the  Indian  Summer.  The  day,  immeasur 
ably  long,  sleeps  over  the  broad  hills  and  warm  wide 
fields.  To  have  lived  through  all  its  sunny  hours, 
seems  longevity  enough.  The  solitary  places  do  not 

seem  quite  lonely.     At  the  gates  of  the  forest,  the 

(167) 


168  ESSAY    VI, 

surprised  man  of  the  world  is  forced  to  leave  his  city 
estimates  of  great  and  small,  wise  and  foolish.  The 
knapsack  of  custom  falls  off  his  back  with  the  first 
step  he  makes  into  these  preciuts.  Here  is  sanctity 
which  shames  our  religions,  and  reality  which  dis 
credits  our  heroes.  Here  we  find  nature  to  be  the 
circumstance  which  dwarfs  every  other  circumstance, 
and  judges  like  a  god  all  men  that  come  to  her.  We 
have  crept  out  of  our  close  and  crowded  houses  into 
the  night  and  morning,  and  we  see  what  majestic 
beauties  daily  wrap  us  in  their  bosom.  How  will 
ingly  we  would  escape  the  barriers  which  render 
them  comparatively  impotent,  escape  the  so_Dhis_ti- 
oation  and  second  thought,  and  suffer  nature  to  in- 
trance  us.  The  tempered  light  of  the  woods  is  like 
a  perpetual  morning,  and  is  stimulating  and  heroic. 
The  anciently  reported  spells  of  these  places  creep 
on  us.  The  stems  of  pines,  hemlocks,  and  oaks, 
almost  gleam  like  iron  on  the  excited  eye.  The  in 
communicable  trees  begin  to  persuade  us  to  live  with 
them,  and  quit  our  life  of  solemn  trifles.  Here  no 
history,  or  church,  or  state,  is  interpolated  on  the 
divine  sky  and  the  immortal  year.  How  easily  we 
might  walk  onward  into  the  opening  landscape, 
absorbed  by  new  pictures,  and  by  thoughts  fast  suc 
ceeding  each  other,  until  by  degrees  the  recollection 


NATUEB.  169 

of  home  was  crowded  out  of  the  mind,  all  memory 
obliterated  by  the  tyranny  of  the  present,  and  we 
were  led  in  triumph  by  nature. 

These  enchantments  are  medicinal,  they  sober  and 
heal  us.  These  are  plain  pleasures,  kindly  and 
native  to  us.  We  come  to  our  own,  and  make 
friends  with  matter,  which  the  ambitious  chatter  of 
the  schools  would  persuade  us  to  despise.  We 
never  can  part  with  it ;  the  mind  loves  its  old  home : 
as  water  to  our  thirst,  so  is  the  rock,  the  ground,  to 
our  eyes,  and  hands,  and  feet.  It  is  firm  water :  it 
is  cold  flame  :  what  health,  what  affinitj^ !  Ever  an 
old  friend,  ever  like  a  dear  friend  and  brother,  when 
we  chat  affectedly  with  strangers,  comes  in  this 
honest  face,  and  takes  a  grave  liberty  with  us,  and 
shames  us  out  of  our  nonsense.  Cities  give  not  the 
human  senses  room  enough.  We  go  out  daily  and 
nightly  to  feed  the  eyes  on  the  horizon,  and  require 
so  much  scope,  just  as  we  need  water  for  our  bath. 
There  are  all  degrees  of  natural  influence,  from 
these  quarantine  powers  of  nature,  up  to  her  dearest 
and  gravest  ministrations  to  the  imagination  and  the 
soul.  There  is  the  bucket  of  cold  water  from  the 
spring,  the  wood-fire  to  which  the  chilled  traveller 
rushes  for  safety, — and  there  is  the  sublime  moral 
of  autumn  and  of  noon.  We  nestle  in  nature,  and 


i?0  fifiSAf  f L 

draw  our  living  as  parasites  from  her  roots  and 
grains,  and  we  receive  glances  from  the  heavenly 
bodies,  which  call  us  to  solitude,  and  foretell  the  re 
motest  future.  The  blue  zenith  is  the  point  in 
which  romance  and  reality  meet.  I  think,  if  we 
should  be  rapt  away  into  all  that  we  dream  of 
heaven,  and  should  converse  with  Gabriel  and  Uriel, 
the  upper  sky  would  be  all  that  would  remain  of  our 
furniture. 

It  seems  as  if  the  day  was  not  wholly  profane,  in 
which  we  have  given  heed  to  some  natural  object. 
The  fall  of  snowflakes  in  a  still  air,  preserving  to 
each  crystal  its  perfect  form ;  the  blowing  of  sleet 
over  a  wide  sheet  of  water,  and  over  plains,  the 
waving  rye-field,  the  mimic  waving  of  acres  of 
houstonia,  whose  innumerable  florets  whiten  and 
ripple  before  the  eye ;  the  reflections  of  trees  and 
flowers  in  glassy  lakes ;  the  musical  steaming  odor 
ous  south  wind,  which  converts  all  trees  to  wind- 
harps  :  the  crackling  and  spurting  of  hemlock  in  the 
flames ;  or  of  pine  logs,  which  yield  glory  to  the 
walls  and  faces  in  the  sitting-room, —  these  are  the 
music  and  pictures  of  the  most  ancient  religion. 
My  house  stands  in  low  land,  with  limited  outlook, 
and  on  the  skirt  of  the  village.  But  I  go  with  my 
friend  to  the  shore  of  our  little  river,  and  with  one 


Stroke  of  the  paddle,  I  leave  the  village  politics  and 
personalities,  yes,  and  the  world  of  villages  and  per 
sonalities  behind,  and  pass  into  a  delicate  realm  of 
sunset  and  moonlight,  too  bright  almost  for  spotted 
man  to  enter  without  noviciate  and  probation.  We 
penetrate  bodily  this  incredible  beauty :  we  dip  our 
hands  in  this  painted  element :  our  eyes  are  bathed 
in  these  lights  and  forms.  A  holiday,  a  villeggia- 
tura,  a  royal  revel,  the  proudest,  most  heart-rejoicing 
festival  that  valor  and  beauty,  power  and  taste,  ever 
decked  and  enjoyed,  establishes  itself  on  the  instant. 
These  sunset  clouds,  these  delicately  emerging  stars, 
with  their  private  and  ineffable  glances,  signify  it 
and  proffer  it.  I  am  taught  the  poorness  of  our  in 
vention,  the  ugliness  of  towns  and  palaces.  Art  and 
luxury  have  early  learned  that  they  must  work  as 
enhancement  and  sequel  to  this  original  beauty.  I 
am  overinstructed  for  my  return.  Henceforth  I 
shall  be  hard  to  please.  I  cannot  go  back  to  toys. 
I  am  grown  expensive  and  sophisticated.  I  can  no 
longer  live  without  elegance ;  but  a  countryman 
shall  be  my  master  of  revels.  He  who  knows  the 
most,  he  who  knows  what  sweets  and  virtues  are  in 
the  ground,  the  waters,  the  plants,  the  heavens,  and 
how  to  come  to  these  enchantments,  is  the  rich  and 
royal  man.  Only  as  far  as  the  masters  of  the  world 


172  ESSAY  VI. 

have  called  in  nature  to  their  aid,  can  they  reach  the 
height  of  magnificence.  This  is  the  meaning  of 
their  hanging-gardens,  villas,  garden-houses,  islands, 
parks,  and  preserves,  to  back  their  faulty  person 
ality  with  these  strong  accessories.  I  do  not  wonder 
that  the  landed  interest  should  be  invincible  in  the 
state  with  these  dangerous  auxiliaries.  These  bribe 
and  invite ;  not  kings,  not  palaces,  not  men,  not 
women,  but  these  tender  and  poetic  stars,  eloquent 
of  secret  promises.  We  heard  what  the  rich  man 
said,  we  knew  of  his  villa,  his  grove,  his  wine,  and 
his  company,  but  the  provocation  and  point  of  the 
invitation  came  out  of  these  beguiling  stars.  In 
their  soft  glances,  I  see  what  men  strove  to  realize 
in  some  Versailles,  or  Paphos,  or  Ctesiphon.  In 
deed,  it  is  the  magical  lights  of  the  horizon,  and  the 
blue  sky  for  the  background,  which  save  all  our 
works  of  art,  which  were  otherwise  bawbles.  When 
the  rich  tax  the  poor  with  servility  and  obsequious- 
iiess,  they  should  consider  the  effect  of  men  reputed 
to  be  the  possessors  of  nature,  on  imaginative  minds. 
Ah !  if  the  rich  were  rich  as  the  poor  fancy  riches ! 
A  boy  hears  a  military  band  play  on  the  field  at 
night,  and  he  has  kings  and  queens,  and  famous 
chivalry  palpably  before  him.  He  hears  the  echoes 
of  a  horn  in  a  hill  country,  in  the  Notch  Mountains, 


NATURE.  173 

for  example,  which  converts  the  mountains  into  an 
JEolian  harp,  and  this  supernatural  tiralira  restores 
to  him  the  Dorian  mythology,  Apolla,  Diana,  and  all 
divine  hunters  and  huntresses.  Can  a  musical  note 
be  so  lofty,  so  haughtily  beautiful !  To  the  poor 
young  poet,  thus  fabulous  is  his  picture  of  society ; 
he  is  loyal ;  he  respects  the  rich ;  they  are  rich  for 
the  sake  of  his  imagination ;  how  poor  his  fancy 
would  be,  if  they  were  not  rich  !  That  they  have 
some  high  fenced  grove,  which  they  call  a  park; 
that  they  live  in  larger  and  better-garnished  saloons 
than  he  has  visited,  and  go  in  coaches,  keeping  only 
the  society  of  the  elegant,  to  watering-places,  and  to 
distant  cities,  are  the  ground-work  from  which  he 
has  delineated  estates  of  romance,  compared  with 
which  their  actual  possessions  are  shanties  and  pad 
locks.  The  muse  herself  betrays  her  son,  and  en 
hances  the  gifts  of  wealth  and  well-born  beauty,  by 
a  radiation  out  of  the  air,  and  clouds,  and  forests 
that  skirt  the  road, — a  certain  haughty  favor,  as  if 
from  patrician  genii  to  patricians,  a  kind  of  aristoc 
racy  in  nature,  a  prince  of  the  power  of  the  air. 

The  moral  sensibility  which  makes  Edens  and 
Tempos  so  easily,  may  not  be  always  found,  but  the 
material  landscape  is  never  far  off.  We  can  find 
these  enchantments  without  visiting  the  Como  Lake, 


174  ESSAY  VI. 

or  the  Madeira  Islands.  We  exaggerate  the  praises 
of  local  scenery.  In  every  landscape,  the  point  of 
astonishment  is  the  meeting  of  the  sky  and  the 
earth,  and  that  is  seen  from  the  first  hillock  as  well 
as  from  the  top  of  the  Alleghanies.  The  stars  at 
night  stoop  down  over  the  brownest,  homeliest  com* 
mon,  with  all  the  spiritual  magnificence  which  they 
shed  on  the  Campagna,  or  on  the  marble  deserts  of 
Egypt.  The  uprolled  clouds  and  the  colors  of  morn 
ing  and  evening,  will  transfigure  maples  and  alders. 
The  difference  between  landscape  and  landscape  is 
small,  but  there  is  great  difference  in  the  beholders. 
There  is  nothing  so  wonderful  in  any  particular  land 
scape,  as  the  necessity  of  being  beautiful  under 
which  every  landscape  lies.  Nature  cannot  be 
surprised  in  undress.  Beauty  breaks  everywhere. 

But  it  is  very  easy  to  outrun  the  sympathy  of 
readers  on  this  topic,  which  schoolmen  called  natura 
naturata,  or  nature  passive.  One  can  hardly  speak 
directly  of  it  without  excess.  It  is  as  easy  to  broach 
in  mixed  companies  what  is  called  "  the  subject  of 
religion."  A  susceptible  person  does  not  like  to  in 
dulge  his  tastes  in  this  kind,  without  the  apology  of 
some  trivial  necessity :  he  goes  to  see  a  woodlot,  or 
to  look  at  the  crops,  or  to  fetch  a  plant  or  a  mineral 
from  a  remote  locality,  or  he  carries  a  fowling  piece, 


NATURE.  176 

or  a  fishing-rod.  I  suppose  this  shame  must  have  a 
good  reason.  A  dilettantism  in  nature  is  barren  and 
unworthy.  The  fop  of  fields  is  no  better  than  his 
brother  of  Broadway.  Men  are  naturally  hunters 
and  inquisitive  of  wood-craft,  and  I  suppose  that 
such  a  gazetteer  as  wood-cutters  and  Indians  should 
furnish  facts  for,  would  take  place  in  the  most  sump 
tuous  drawing-rooms  of  all  the  "  Wreaths "  and 
"  Flora's  chaplets  "  of  the  bookshops  ;  yet  ordinarily, 
whether  we  are  too  clumsy  for  so  subtle  a  topic,  or 
from  whatever  cause,  as  soon  as  men  begin  to  write 
on  nature,  they  fall  into  euphuism.  Frivolity  is  a 
most  unfit  tribute  to  Pan,  who  ought  to  be  repre 
sented  in  the  mythology  as  the  most  continent  of 
gods.  I  would  not  be  frivolous  before  the  admirable 
reserve  and  prudence  of  time,  yet  I  cannot  renounce 
the  right  of  returning  often  to  this  old  topic*  The 
multitude  of  false  churches  accredits  the  true  relig 
ion.  Literature,  poetry,  science,  are  the  homage  of 
man  to  this  unfathomed  secret,  concerning  which  no 
sane  man  can  affect  an  indifference  or  incuriosity. 
Nature  is  loved  by  what  is  best  in  us.  It  is  loved  as 
the  city  of  God,  although,  or  rather  because  there  is 
no  citizen.  The  sunset  is  unlike  anything  that  is 
underneath  it :  it  wants  men.  And  the  beauty  of 
nature  must  always  seem  unreal  and  mocking,  until 


176  ESSAY  VI. 

the  landscape  has  human  figures,  that  are  as  good  as 
itself.  If  there  were  good  men,  there  would  never 
be  this  rapture  in  nature.  If  the  king  is  in  the  pal 
ace,  nobody  looks  at  the  walls.  It  is  when  he  is 
gone,  and  the  house  is  filled  with  grooms  and  gaz 
ers,  that  we  turn  from  the  people,  to  find  relief  in 
the  majestic  men  that  are  suggested  by  the  pictures 
and  the  architecture.  The  critics  who  complain  of 
the  sickly  separation  of  the  beauty  of  nature  from 
the  thing  to  be  done,  must  consider  that  our  hunting 
of  the  picturesque  is  inseparable  from  our  protest 
against  false  society.  Man  is  fallen  ;  nature  is  erect, 
and  serves  as  a  differential  thermometer,  detecting 
the  presence  or  absence  of  the  divine  sentiment  in 
man.  By  fault  of  our  dulness  and  selfishness,  we 
are  looking  up  to  nature,  but  when  we  are  convales 
cent,  nature  will  look  up  to  us.  We  see  the  foaming 
brook  with  compunction  :  if  our  own  life  flowed  with 
the  right  energy,  we  should  shame  the  brook.  The 
stream  of  zeal  sparkles  with  real  fire,  and  not  with 
reflex  rays  of  sun  and  moon.  Nature  may  be  as 
selfishly  studied  as  trade.  Astronomy  to  the  selfish 
becomes  astrology ;  psychology,  mesmerism  (with 
intent  to  show  where  our  spoons  are  gone)  ;  and 
anatomy  and  physiology,  become  phrenology  and 
palmistry. 


NATURE.  17T 

But  taking  timely  warning,  and  leaving  many 
things  unsaid  on  this  topic,  let  us  not  longer  omit  our 
homage  to  the  Efficient  Nature,  natura  naturans,  the 
quick  cause,  before  which  all  forms  flee  as  the  driven 
snows,  itself  secret,  its  works  driven  before  it  in 
flocks  and  multitudes,  (as  the  ancient  represented 
nature  by  Proteus,  a  shepherd,)  and  in  undescribable 
variety.  It  publishes  itself  in  creatures,  reaching 
from  particles  and  spicula,  through  transformation 
on  transformation  to  the  highest  symmetries,  arriv 
ing  at  consummate  results  without  a  shock  or  a  leap. 
A  little  heat,  that  is,  a  little  motion,  is  all  that  differ 
ences  the  bald,  dazzling  white,  and  deadly  cold  poles 
of  the  earth  from  the  prolific  tropical  climates.  All 
changes  pass  without  violence,  by  reason  of  the  two 
cardinal  conditions  of  boundless  space  and  boundless 
time.  Geology  has  initiated  us  into  the  secularity  of 
nature,  and  taught  us  to  disuse  our  dame-school 
measures,  and  exchange  our  Mosaic  and  Ptolemaic 
schemes  for  her  large  style.  We  knew  nothing 
rightly,  for  want  of  perspective.  Now  we  learn 
what  patient  periods  must  round  themselves  before 
the  rock  is  formed,  then  before  the  rock  is  broken, 
and  the  first  lichen  race  has  disintegrated  the  thin 
nest  external  plate  into  soil,  and  opened  the  door  for 

the  remote  Flora,  Fauna,  Ceres,   and   Pomona,  to 
12 


178  ESSAY  VI. 

come  in.  How  far  off  yet  is  the  trilobite  !  how  fai 
the  quadruped  !  how  inconceivably  remote  is  man ! 
All  duly  arrive,  and  then  race  after  race  of  men.  It 
is  a  long  way  from  granite  to  the  oyster ;  farther  yet 
to  Plato,  and  the  preaching  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  Yet  all  must  come,  as  surely  as  the  first 
atom  has  two  sides. 

Motion  or  change,  and  identity  or  rest,  are  the 
first  and  second  secrets  of  nature  :  Motion  and  Rest. 
The  whole  code  of  her  laws  may  be  written  on  the 
thumbnail,  or  the  signet  of  a  ring.  The  whirling 
bubble  on  the  surface  of  a  brook,  admits  us  to  the 
secret  of  the  mechanics  of  the  sky.  Every  shell  on 
the  beach  is  a  key  to  it.  A  little  water  made  to 
rotate  in  a  cup  explains  the  formation  of  the  simpler 
shells ;  the  addition  of  matter  from  year  to  year,  ar 
rives  at  last  at  the  most  complex  forms ;  and  yet  so 
poor  is  nature  with  all  her  craft,  that,  from  the  be 
ginning  to  the  end  of  the  universe,  she  has  but  one 
stuff, — but  one  stuff  with  its  two  ends,  to  serve  up 
all  her  dream-like  variety.  Compound  it  how  she 
will,  star,  sand,  fire,  water,  tree,  man,  it  is  still  one 
stuff,  and  betrays  the  same  properties. 

Nature  is  always  consistent,  though  she  feigns  to 
contravene  her  own  laws.  She  keeps  her  laws,  and 
seems  to  transcend  them.  She  arms  and  equips  an 


NATURE.  179 

animal  to  find  its  place  and  living  in  the  earth,  and, 
at  the  same  ti'me,  she  arms  and  equips  another 
animal  to  destroy  it.  Space  exists  to  divide  creat 
ures  ;  but  by  clothing  the  sides  of  a  bird  with  a  few 
feathers,  she  gives  him  a  petty  omnipresence.  The 
direction  is  forever  onward,  but  the  artist  still  goes 
back  for  materials,  and  begins  again  with  the  first 
elements  on  the  most  advanced  stage  :  otherwise,  all 
goes  to  ruin.  If  we  look  at  her  work,  we  seem  to 
catch  a  glance  of  a  system  in  transition.  Plants  are 
the  young  of  the  world,  vessels  of  health  and  vigor; 
but  they  grope  ever  upward  towards  consciousness; 
the  trees  are  imperfect  men,  and  seem  to  bemoan 
their  imprisonment,  rooted  in  the  ground.  The 
animal  is  the  novice  and  probationer  of  a  more  ad 
vanced  order.  The  men,  though  young,  having 
tasted  the  first  drop  from  the  cup  of  thought,  are 
already  dissipated:  the  maples  and  ferns  are  still  un- 
corrupt;  yet  no  doubt,  when  they  come  to  conscious^ 
ness,  they  too  will  curse  and  swear.  Flowers  so 
strictly  belong  to  youth,  that  we  adult  men  soon 
come  to  feel,  that  their  beautiful  generations  concern 
not  us :  we  have  had  our  day ;  now  let  the  children 
have  theirs.  The  flowers  jilt  us,  and  we  are  old 
bachelors  with  our  ridiculous  tenderness. 

Things  are  so  strictly  related,  that  according  to  the 


180  ESSAY  VI. 

skill  of  the  eye,  from  anytime  object  the  parts  and 
properties  of  any  other  may  be  predicted.  If  we  had 
eyes  to  see  it,  a  bit  of  stone  from  the  city  wall  would 
certify  us  of  the  necessity  that  man  must  exist,  as 
readily  as  the  city.  That  identity  .makes  us  all  onef 
and  reduces  to  nothing  great  intervals  on  our  cus- 
tomary  scale.  We  talk  of  deviations  from  natural 
life,  as  if  artificial  life  were  not  also  natural.  The 
smoothest  curled  courtier  in  the  boudoirs  of  a  palace 
has  an  animal  nature,  rude  and  aboriginal  as  a  white 
bear,  omnipotent  to  its  own  ends,  and  is  directly  re* 
lated,  there  amid  essences  and  billetsdoux,  to  Him. 
maleh  mountain  chains,  and  the  axis  of  the  globe. 
If  we  consider  how  much  we  are  nature's,  we  need 
•  not  be  superstitious  about  towns,  as  if  that  terrific  01 
benefic  force  did  not  find  us  there  also,  and  fashion 
cities.  Nature  who  made  the  mason,  made  the  house. 
We  may  easily  hear  too  much  of  rural  influences. 
The  cool  disengaged  air  of  natural  objects,  makes 
them  enviable  to  us,  chafed  and  irritable  creatures 
with  red  faces,  and  we  think  we  shall  be  as  grand  as 
they,  if  we  camp  out  and  eat  roots ;  but  let  us  be 
men  instead  of  wood-chucks,  and  the  oak  and  the 
elm  shall  gladly  serve  us,  though  we  sit  in  chairs  of 
ivory  on  carpets  of  silk. 

TVs  guiding   identity  runs  through  all  the  sur 


NATURE.  181 

prises  and  contrasts  of  the  piece,  and  characterizes 
every  law.  Man  carries  the  world  in  his  head,  the 
whole  astronomy  and  chemistry  suspended  in  a 
thought.  Because  the  history  of  nature  is  charac 
tered  in  his  brain,  therefore  is  he  the  prophet  and 
i  discoverer  of  her  secrets.  Every  known  fact  in  nat- 
\iral  science  was  divined  by  the  presentiment  of 
somebody,  before  it  was  actually  verified.  A  man 
does  not  tie  his  shoe  without  recognising  laws  which 
bind  the  farthest  regions  of  nature  :  moon,  plant, 
gas,  crystal,  are  concrete  geometry  and  numbers. 
Common  sense  knows  its  own,  and  recognises  the 
fact  at  first  sight  in  chemical  experiment.  The  com 
mon  sense  of  Franklin,  Dal  ton,  Davy,  and  Black,  is 
the  same  common  sense  which  made  the  arrange 
ments  which  now  it  discovers. 

If  the  identity  expresses  organized  rest,  the 
counter  action  runs  also  into  organization.  The  as 
tronomers  said  '  Give  us  matter,  and  a  little  motion, 
and  we  will  construct  the  universe.  It  is  not 
enough  that  we  should  have  matter,  we  must  also 
have  a  single  impulse,  one  shove  to  launch  the  mass, 
and  generate  the  harmony  of  the  centrifugal  and 
centripetal  forces.  Once  heave  the  ball  from  the 
hand,  and  we  can  show  how  all  this  mighty  order 
grew.' — *  A  very  unreasonable  postulate/  said  the 


182  ESSAY  VI. 

metaphysicians,  'and  a  plain  begging  of  the  ques 
tion.  Could  you  not  prevail  to  know  the  genesis  of 
projection,  as  well  as  the  continuation  of  it  ?  '  Na 
ture,  meanwhile,  had  not  waited  for  the  discussion, 
but,  right  or  wrong,  bestowed  the  impulse,  and  the 
balls  rolled.  It  was  no  great  affair,  a  mere  push, 
but  the  astronomers  were  right  in  making  much  of 
it,  for  there  is  no  end  to  the  consequences  of  the 
act.  That  famous  aboriginal  push  propagates  itself 
through  all  the  balls  of  the  system,  arid  through 
every  atom  of  every  ball,  through  all  the  races  of 
creatures,  and  through  the  history  and  performances 
of  every  individual.  Exaggeration  is  in  the  course 
of  things.  Nature  sends  no  creature,  no  man  into 
the  world,  without  adding  a  small  excess  of  his 
proper  quality.  Given  the  planet,  it  is  still  neces 
sary  to  add  the  impulse  ;  so,  to  every  nature  added 
a  little  violence  of  direction  in  its  proper  path;  a 
shove  to  put  it  on  its  way;  in  every  instance,  a 
slight  generosity,  a  drop  too  much.  Without  elec 
tricity  the  air  would  rot,  and  without  this  violence 
of  direction,  which  men  and  women  have,  without  a 
spice  of  bigot  and  fanatic,  no  excitement,  no  effi 
ciency.  We  aim  above  the  mark,  to  hit  the  mark. 
Every  act  hath  some  falsehood  of  exaggeration  in  it. 
And  when  now  and  then  comes  along  some  sad, 


NATURE.  183 

sharp-eyed  man,  who  sees  how  paltry  a  game  is 
played,  and  refuses  to  play,  but  blabs  the  secret;— 
how  then  ?  is  the  bird  flown  ?  O  no,  the  wary  Na 
ture  sends  a  new  troop  of  fairer  forms,  of  lordlier 
youths,  with  a  little  more  excess  of  direction  to  hold 
them  fast  to  their  several  aim  ;  makes  them  a  little 
wrongheaded  in  that  direction  in  which  they  are 
rightest,  and  on  goes  the  game  again  with  new  whirl, 
for  a  generation  or  two  more.  The  child  with  his 
sweet  pranks,  the  fool  of  his  senses,  commanded  by 
every  sight  and  sound,  without  any  power  to  com 
pare  and  rank  his  sensations,  abandoned  to  a  whistle 
or  a  painted  chip,  to  a  lead  dragoon,  or  a  ginger 
bread-dog,  individualizing  everything,  generalizing 
nothing,  delighted  with  every  new  thing,  lies  down 
at  night  overpowered  by  the  fatigue,  which  this  day 
of  continual  pretty  madness  has  incurred.  But  Na 
ture  has  answered  her  purpose  with  the  curly,  dim 
pled  lunatic.  She  has  tasked  every  faculty,  and  has 
secured  the  symmetrical  growth  of  the  bodily  frame, 
by  all  these  attitudes  and  exertions, — an  end  of  the 
first  importance,  which  could  riot  be  trusted  to  any 
care  less  perfect  than  her  own.  This  glitter,  this 
opaline  lustre  plays  round  the  top  of  every  toy  to 
his  eye,  to  ensure  his  fidelity,  and  he  is  deceived  to 
his  good.  We  are  made  alive  and  kept  alive  by  the 


184  ESSAY  VI. 

same  arts.  Let  the  stoics  say  what  they  please,  we 
do  not  eat  for  the  good  of  living,  but  because  the 
meat  is  savory  and  the  appetite  is  keen.  The  vege 
table  life  does  not  content  itself  with  casting  from 
the  flower  or  the  tree  a  single  seed,  but  it  fills  the 
air  and  earth  with  a  prodigality  of  seeds,  that,  if 
thousands  perish,  thousands  may  plant  themselves, 
that  hundreds  may  come  up,  that  tens  may  live  to 
maturity,  that,  at  least  one  may  replace  the  parent. 
All  things  betray  the  same  calculated  profusion. 
The  excess  of  fear  with  which  the  animal  frame  is 
hedged  round,  shrinking  from  cold,  starting  at  sight 
of  a  snake,  or  at  a  sudden  noise,  protects  us,  through 
a  multitude  of  groundless  alarms,  from  some  one 
real  danger  at  last.  The  lover  seeks  in  marriage 
his  private  felicity  and  perfection,  with  no  prospect 
ive  end ;  and  nature  hides  in  his  happiness  her  own 
end,  namely,  progeny,  or  the  perpetuity  of  the  race. 

But  the  craft  with  which  the  world  is  made,  runs 
also  into  the  mind  and  character  of  men.  No  man 
is  quite  sane ;  each  has  a  vein  of  folly  in  his  compo 
sition,  a  slight  determination  of  blood  to  the  head,  to 
make  sure  of  holding  him  hard  to  some  one  point 
which  nature  had  taken  to  heart.  Great  causes  are 
never  tried  on  their  merits ;  but  the  cause  is  reduced 
to  particulars  to  suit  the  size  of  the  partizans,  and 


NATURE.  185 

the  contention  is  ever  hottest  on  minor  matters. 
Not  less  remarkable  is  the  overfaith  of  each  man  in 
the  importance  of  what  he  has  to  do  or  say.  The 
poet,  the  prophet,  has  a  higher  value  for  what  he  ut 
ters  than  any  hearer,  and  therefore  it  gets  spoken. 
The  strong,  self-complacent  Luther  declares  with  an 
emphasis,  not  to  be  mistaken,  that  "  God  himself 
cannot  do  without  wise  men."  Jacob  Behman  and 
George  Fox  betray  their  egotism  in  their  pertinacity 
of  their  controversial  tracts,  and  James  Naylor  once 
suffered  himself  to  be  worshipped  as  the  Christ. 
Each  prophet  comes  presently  to  identify  himself 
with  his  thought,  and  to  esteem  his  hat  and  shoes 
sacred.  However  this  may  discredit  such  persons 
with  the  judicious,  it  helps  them  with  the  people,  as 
it  gives  heat,  pungency,  and  publicity  to  their  words. 
A  similar  experience  is  not  infrequent  in  private  life. 
Each  young  and  ardent  person  writes  a  diary,  in 
which,  when  the  hours  of  prayer  and  penitence  ar 
rive,  he  inscribes  his  soul.  The  pages  thus  written 
are,  to  him,  burning  and  fragrant :  he  reads  them  on 
his  knees  by  midnight  and  by  the  morning  star ;  he 
wets  them  with  his  tears :  they  are  sacred ;  too  good 
for  the  world,  and  hardly  yet  to  be  shown  to  the 
dearest  friend.  This  is  the  man-child  that  is  born  to 
the  soul,  and  her  life  still  circulates  in  the  babe. 


186  ESSAY  VT. 

The  umbilical  cord  has  not  yet  been  cut.  After 
some  time  has  elapsed,  he  begins  to  wish  to  admit 
bis  friend  to  this  hallowed  experience,  arid  with  hes 
itation,  yet  with  firmness,  exposes  the  pages  to  his 
eye.  Will  they  not  burn  his  eyes?  The  friend 
coldly  turns  them  over,  and  passes  from  the  writing 
to  conversation,  with  easy  transition,  which  strikes 
the  other  party  with  astonishment  and  vexation.  He 
cannot  suspect  the  writing  itself.  Days  and  nights 
of  fervid  life,  of  communion  with  angels  of  darkness 
and  of  light,  have  engraved  their  shadowy  characters 
on  that  tear-stained  book.  He  suspects  the  intelli 
gence  or  the  heart  of  his  friend.  Is  there  then  no 
friend  ?  He  cannot  yet  credit  that  one  may  have 
impressive  experience,  and  yet  may  not  know  how 
to  put  his  private  fact  into  literature ;  and  perhaps 
the  discovery  that  wisdom  has  other  tongues  and 
ministers  than  we,  that  though  we  should  hold  our 
peace,  the  truth  would  not  the  less  be  spoken,  might 
check  injuriously  the  flames  of  our  zeal.  A  man 
can  only  speak,  so  long  as  he  does  not  feel  his  speech 
to  be  partial  and  inadequate.  It  is  partial,  but  he 
does  not  see  it  to  be  so,  whilst  he  utters  it.  As  soon 
as  he  is  released  from  the  instinctive  and  particular, 
and  sees  its  partiality,  he  shuts  his  mouth  in  disgust. 
For,  no  man  can  write  anything,  who  does  not  think 


NATURE.  187 

r 
that  what  he  writes  is  for  the  time  the  history  of  the 

world  ;  or  do  anything  well,  who  does  not  esteem 
his  work  to  be  of  importance.  My  work  may  be  of 
none,  but  I  must  not  think  it  of  none,  or  I  shall  not 
do  it  with  impunity. 

In  like  mariner,  there  is  throughout  nature  some 
thing  mocking,  something  that  leads  us  on  and  on, 
but  arrives  nowhere,  keeps  no  faith  with  us.  All 
promise  outruns  the  performance.  We  live  in  a  sys 
tem  of  approximations.  Every  end  is  prospective 
of  some  other  end,  which  is  also  temporary  ;  a  round 
and  final  success  nowhere.  We  are  encamped  in  na 
ture,  not  domesticated.  Hunger  and  thirst  lead  us 
on  to  eat  and  to  drink ;  but  bread  and  wine,  mix  and 
cook  them  how  you  will,  leave  us  hungry  and  thirsty, 
after  the  stomach  is  full.  It  is  the  same  with  all  our 
arts  and  performances.  Our  music,  our  poetry,  our 
language  itself  are  not  satisfactions,  but  suggestions. 
The  hunger  for  wealth,  which  reduces  the  planet  to 
a  garden,  fools  the  eager  pursuer.  What  is  the  end 
sought?  Plainly  to  secure  the  ends  of  good  sense 
and  beauty,  from  the  intrusion  of  deformity  or  vul 
garity  of  any  kind.  But  what  an  operose  method ! 
What  a  train  of  means  to  secure  a  little  conversa 
tion  !  This  palace  of  brick  and  stone,  these  servants, 
this  kitchen,  these  stables,  horses  and  equipage,  this 


188  ESSAY  VI. 

bank-stock,  and  file  of  mortgages ;  trade  to  all  the 
world,  country-house  and  cottage  by  the  waterside, 
all  for  a  little  conversation,  high,  clear,  and  spirit 
ual  !  Could  it  not  be  had  as  well  by  beggars  on  the 
highway  ?  No,  all  these  things  came  from  successive 
efforts  of  these  beggars  to  remove  friction  from  the 
wheels  of  life,  and  give  opportunity.  Conversation, 
character,  were  the  avowed  ends ;  wealth  was  good 
as  it  appeased  the  animal  cravings,  cured  the  smoky 
chimney,  silenced  the  creaking  door,  brought  friends 
together  in  a  warm  and  quiet  room,  and  kept  the 
children  and  the  dinner-table  in  a  different  apart 
ment.  Thought,  virtue,  beauty,  were  the  ends;  but 
it  was  known  that  men  of  thought  and  virtue  some 
times  had  the  headache,  or  wet  feet,  or  could  lose 
good  time  whilst  the  room  was  getting  warm  in 
winter  days.  Unluckily,  in  the  exertions  necessary 
to  remove  these  inconveniences,  the  main  attention 
has  been  diverted  to  this  object ;  the  old  aims  have 
been  lost  sight  of,  and  to  remove  friction  has  come  to 
be  the  end.  That  is  the  ridicule  of  rich  men,  and 
Boston,  London,  Vienna,  and  now  the  governments 
generally  of  the  world,  are  cities  and  governments  of 
the  rich,  and  the  masses  are  not  men,  but  poor  men, 
that  is,  men  who  would  be  rich ;  this  is  the  ridicule 
of  the  class,  that  they  arrive  with  pains  and  sweat 


NATUEE.  189 

and  fury  nowhere  ;  when  all  is  done,  it  is  for  noth 
ing.  .They  are  like  one  who  has  interrupted  the 
conversation  of  a  company  to  make  his  speech,  and 
now  has  forgotten  what  he  went  to  say.  The  appear 
ance  strikes  the  eye  everywhere  of  an  aimless  society, 
of  aimless  nations.  Were  the  ends  of  nature  so 
great  and  cogent,  as  to  exact  this  immense  sacrifice 
of  men  ? 

Quite  analogous  to  the  deceits  in  life,  there  is,  as 
might  be  expected,  a  similar  effect  on  the  eye  from 
the  face  of  external  nature.  There  is  in  woods  and 
waters  a  certain  enticement  and  flattery,  together 
with  a  failure  to  yield  a  present  satisfaction.  This 
disappointment  is  felt  in  every  landscape.  I  have 
seen  the  softness  and  beauty  of  the  summer-clouds 
floating  feathery  overhead,  enjoying,  as  it  seemed, 
their  height  and  privilege  of  motion,  whilst  yet  they 
appeared  not  so  much  the  drapery  of  this  place  and 
hour,  as  forelooking  to  some  pavilions  and  gardens 
of  festivity  beyond.  It  is  an  odd  jealousy  :  but  the 
poet  finds  himself  not  near  enough  to  his  object. 
The  pine-tree,  the  river,  the  bank  of  flowers  before 
him,  does  not  seem  to  be  nature.  Nature  is  still 
elsewhere.  This  or  this  is  but  outskirt  and  far-off 
reflection  and  echo  of  the  triumph  that  has  passed 
by,  and  is  now  at  its  glancing  splendor  and  heyday, 


190  ESSAY   VI. 

perchance  in  the  neighboring  fields,  or,  if  you  stand 
in  the  field,  then  iu  the  adjacent  woods.  The  pres 
ent  object  shall  give  you  this  sense  of  stillness  that 
follows  a  pageant  which  has  just  gone  by.  What 
splendid  distance,  what  recesses  of  ineffable  pomp 
and  loveliness  in  the  sunset !  But  who  can  go  where 
they  are,  or  lay  his  hand  or  plant  his  foot  theron? 
Off  they  fall  from  the  round  world  forever  and  ever. 
It  is  the  same  among  the  men  and  women,  as  among 
the  silent  trees ;  always  a  referred  existence,  an  ab 
sence,  never  a  presence  and  satisfaction.  Is  it,  that 
beauty  can  never  be  grasped?  in  persons  and  in 
landscape  is  equally  inaccessible  ?  The  accepted  and 
betrothed  lover  has  lost  the  wildest  charm  of  his 
maiden  in  her  acceptance  of  him.  She  was  heaven 
whilst  he  pursued  her  as  a  star:  she  cannot  be 
heaven,  if  she  stoops  to  such  a  one  as  he. 

What  shall  we  say  of  this  omnipresent  appearance 
of  that  first  projectile  impulse,  of  this  flattery  and 
baulking  of  so  many  well-meaning  creatures?  Must 
we  not  suppose  somewhere  in  the  universe  a  slight 
treachery  and  derision?  Are  we  not  engaged  to  a 
serious  resentment  of  this  use  that  is  made  of  us  ? 
Are  we  tickled  trout,  and  fools  of  nature?  One 
look  at  the  face  of  heaven  and  earth  lays  all  petu 
lance  at  rest,  and  soothes  us  to  wiser  convictions. 


NATURE.  191 

To  the  intelligent,  nature  converts  itself  into  a  vast 
promise,  and  will  not  be  rashly  explained.  Her 
secret  is  untold.  Many  and  many  an  (Edipus  ar 
rives:  he  has  the  whole  mystery  teeming  in  his 
brain.  Alas  !  the  same  sorcery  has  spoiled  his  skill; 
no  syllable  can  he  shape  on  his  lips.  Her  mighty 
orbit  vaults  like  the  fresh  rainbow  into  the  deep,  but 
no  archangel's  wing  was  yet  strong  enough  to  follow 
it,  and  report  of  the  return  of  the  curve.  But  it 
also  appears,  that  our  actions  are  seconded  and  dis 
posed  to  greater  conclusions  than  we  designed.  We 
are  escorted  on  every  hand  through  life  by  spiritual 
agents,  and  a  beneficent  purpose  lies  in  wait  for  us. 
We  cannot  bandy  words  with  nature,  or  deal  with 
her  as  we  deal  with  persons.  If  we  measure  our  in 
dividual  forces  against  hers,  we  may  easily  feel  as  if 
we  were  the  sport  of  an  insuperable  destiny.  But  if, 
instead  of  identifying  ourselves  rith  the  work,  we 
feel  that  the  soul  of  the  workman  streams  through 
us,  we  shall  find  the  peace  of  the  morning  dwelling 
first  in  our  hearts,  and  the  fathomless  powers  of 
gravity  and  chemistry  and,  over  them,  of  life,  pre 
existing  within  us  in  their  highest  form. 

The  uneasiness  which  the  thought  of  our  helpless 
ness  in  the  chain  of  causes  occasions  us,  results  from 
looking  too  much  at  one  condition  of  nature,  namely, 


192  ESSAY   VL 

Motion.  But  the  drag  is  never  taken  from  the 
wheel.  Wherever  the  impulse  exceeds,  the  Rest  or 
Identity  insinuates  its  compensation.  All  over  the 
wide  fields  of  earth  grows  the  prunella  or  self-heal. 
After  every  foolish  day  we  sleep  off  the  fumes  and 
furies  of  its  hours ;  and  though  we  are  always  en 
gaged  with  particulars,  and  often  enslaved  to  them, 
we  bring  with  us  to  every  experiment  the  innate 
universal  laws.  These,  while  they  exist  in  the  mind 
as  ideas,  stand  around  us  in  nature  forever  em 
bodied,  a  present  sanity  to  expose  and  cure  the  in 
sanity  of  men.  Our  servitude  to  particulars  betrays 
into  a  hundred  foolish  expectations.  We  anticipate 
a  new  era  from  the  invention  of  a  locomotive,  or  a 
balloon ;  the  new  engine  brings  with  it  the  old 
checks.  They  say  that  by  electro-magnetism,  your 
salad  shall  be  grown  from  the  seed,  whilst  your  fowl 
is  roasting  for  dinner  :  it  is  a  symbol  of  our  modern 
aims  and  endeavors, — of  our  condensation  and  accel 
eration  of  objects:  but  nothing  is  gained:  nature 
cannot  be  cheated :  man's  life  is  but  seventy  salads 
long,  grow  they  swift  or  grow  they  slow.  In  these 
checks  and  impossibilities,  however,  we  find  our  ad* 
vantage,  not  less  than  in  the  impulses.  Let  the  vic 
tory  fall  where  it  will,  we  are  on  that  side.  And  the 
knowledge  that  we  traverse  the  whole  scale  of  being, 


NATtfBE.  198 

From  the  centre  to  the  poles  of  nature,  and  have 
some  stake  in  every  possibility,  lends  that  sublime 
lustre  to  death,  which  philosophy  and  religion  have 
too  outwardly  and  literally  striven  to  express  in  the 
popular  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
The  reality  is  more  excellent  than  the  report.  Here 
is  no  ruin,  no  discontinuity,  no  spent  ball.  The 
divine  circulations  never  rest  nor  linger.  Nature 
is  the  incarnation  of  a  thought,  and  turns  to  a 
thought  again,  as  ice  becomes  water  and  gas.  The 
world  is  mind  precipitated,  and  the  volatile  essence 
is  forever  escaping  again  into  the  state  of  free 
thought.  Hence  the  virtue  and  pungency  of  the  in- 
fluence  on  the  mind,  of  natural  objects,  whether  in 
organic  or  organized.  Man  imprisoned,  man  crystal 
lized,  man  vegetative,  speaks  to  man  impersonated. 
That  power  which  does  not  respect  quantity,  which 
makes  the  whole  and  the  particle  its  equal  channel, 
delegates  its  smile  to  the  morning,  and  distils  its 
essence  into  every  drop  of  rain.  Every  moment  in 
structs,  and  every  object :  for  wisdom  is  infused  into 
every  form.  It  has  been  poured  into  us  as  blood ;  it 
convulsed  us  as  pain  ;  it  slid  into  us  as  pleasure ;  it 
enveloped  us  in  dull,  melancholy  days,  or  in  days  of 
cheerful  labor ;  we  did  not  guess  its  essence,  until 

after  a  long  time. 
18 


POLITICS. 


Gold  and  iron  are  good 

To  buy  iron  and  gold ; 

All  earth's  fleece  and  food 

For  their  like  are  sold. 

Boded  Merlin  wise, 

Proved  Napoleon  great,— 

Nor  kind  nor  coinage  buy? 

Aught  above  its  rate. 

Fear,  Craft,  and  Avarice 

Cannot  rear  a  State. 

Out  of  dust  to  build 

What  is  more  than  dust,— 

Walls  Amphion  piled 

Phcebus  stablish  must. 

When  the  Muses  nine 

With  the  Virtues  meet, 

Find  to  their  design 

An  Atlantic  seat, 

By  green  orchard  boughs 

Fended  from  the  heat, 

Where  the  statesman  ploughs 

Farrow  for  the  wheat; 

When  the  Church  is  social  worth, 

When  the  state-house  is  the  hearth, 

Then  the  perfect  state  is  come, 

The  republican  at  home. 


ESSAY  VII. 
POLITICS. 


IN  dealing  with  the  State,  we  ought  to  remember 
that  its  institutions  are  not  aboriginal,  though  they 
existed  before  we  were  born:  that  they  are  not 
superior  to  the  citizen :  that  every  one  of  them  was 
once  the  act  of  a  single  man  :  every  law  and  usage 
was  a  man's  expedient  to  meet  a  particular  case : 
that  they  all  are  imitable,  all  alterable ;  we  may 
make  as  good  ;  we  may  make  better.  Society  is  an 
illusion  to  the  young  citizen.  It  lies  before  him  in 
rigid  repose,  with  certain  names,  men,  and  institu 
tions,  rooted  like  oak-trees  to  the  centre,  round 
which  all  arrange  themselves  the  best  they  can.  But 
the  old  statesman  knows  that  society  is  fluid ;  there 
are  no  such  roots  and  centres ;  but  ftny  particle  may 
suddenly  become  the  centre  of  the  movement,  and 
compel  the  system  to  gyrate  round  it,  as  every  man 
of  strong  will,  like  Pisistratus,  or  Cromwell,  does  for 
a  time,  and  every  man  of  truth,  like  Plato,  or  Paul, 


198  ESSAY  Vtt. 

does  forever.  But  politics  rest  on  necessary  founda 
tions,  and  cannot  be  treated  with  levity.  Republics 
abound  in  young  civilians,  who  believe  that  the  laws 
make  the  city,  that  grave  modifications  of  the  policy 
and  modes  of  living,  and  employments  of  the  popu 
lation,  that  commerce,  education,  and  religion,  may 
be  voted  in  or  out ;  and  that  any  measure,  though  it 
were  absurd,  may  be  imposed  on  a  people,  if  only 
you  can  get  sufficient  voices  to  make  it  a  law.  But 
the  wise  know  that  foolish  legislation  is  a  rope  of 
sand,  which  perishes  in  the  twisting ;  that  the  State 
must  follow,  and  not  lead  the  character  and  progress 
of  the  citizen  ;  the  strongest  usurper  is  quickly  got 
rid  of;  and  they  only  who  build  on  Ideas,  build  for 
eternity ;  and  that  the  form  of  government  which 
prevails,  is  the  expression  of  what  cultivation  exists 
in  the  population  which  permits  it.  The  law  is  only 
a  memorandum.  We  are  superstitious,  and  esteem 
the  statute  somewhat:  so  much  life  as  it  has  in  the 
character  of  living  men,  is  its  force.  The  statute 
stands  there  to  say,  yesterday  we  agreed  so  and  so, 
but  how  feel  ye  this  article  to-day  ?  Our  statute  is 
a  currency,  which  we  stamp  with  our  own  portrait: 
it  soon  becomes  unrecognizable,  and  in  process  of 
time  will  return  to  the  mint.  Nature  is  not  dem 
ocratic,  nor  limited-monarchical,  but  despotic,  and 


POLITICS.  199 

will  not  be  fooled  or  abated  of  any  jot  of  her 
authority,  by  the  pertest  of  her  sons :  and  as  fast  as 
the  public  mind  is  opened  to  more  intelligence,  the 
code  is  seen  to  be  brute  and  stammering.  It  speaks 
not  articulately,  and  must  be  made  to.  Meantime 
the  education  of  the  general  mind  never  stops.  The 
reveries  of  the  true  and  simple  are  prophetic.  What 
the  tender  poetic  youth  dreams,  and  prays,  and  paints 
to-day,  but  shuns  the  ridicule  of  saying  aloud,  shall 
presently  be  the  resolutions  of  public  bodies,  then 
shall  be  carried  as  grievance  and  bill  of  rights 
through  conflict  and  war,  and  then  shall  be  triumph 
ant  law  and  establishment  for  a  hundred  years,  until 
it  gives  place,  in  turn,  to  new  prayers  and  pictures. 
The  history  of  the  State  sketches  in  coarse  outline 
the  progress  of  thought,  and  follows  at  a  distance 
the  delicacy  of  culture  and  of  aspiration. 

The  theory  of  politics,  which  has  possessed  the 
mind  of  men,  and  which  they  have  expressed  the 
best  they  could  in  their  laws  and  in  their  revolutions, 
considers  persons  and  property  as  the  two  objects  for 
whose  protection  government  exists.  Of  persons, 
all  have  equal  rights,  in  virtue  of  being  identical  in 
nature.  This  interest,  of  course,  with  its  whole 
power  demands  a  democracy.  Whilst  the  rights  of 
all  as  persons  are  equal,  in  virtue  of  their  access  to 


200  ESSAY   VII. 

reason,  their  rights  in  property  are  very  unequal. 
One  man  owns  his  clothes,  and  another  owns  a 
county.  This  accident,  depending,  primarily,  on  the 
skill  and  virtue  of  the  parties,  of  which  there  is  every 
degree,  and,  secondarily,  on  patrimony,  falls  une 
qually,  and  its  rights,  of  course,  are  unequal.  Per 
sonal  rights,  universally  the  same,  demand  a  govern, 
ment  framed  on  the  ratio  of  the  census ;  property 
demands  a  government  framed  on  the  ratio  of  own 
ers  and  of  owning.  Laban,  who  has  flocks  and 
herds,  wishes  them  looked  after  by  an  officer  on  the 
frontiers,  lest  the  Midianites  shall  drive  them  off, 
and  pays  a  tax  to  that  end.  Jacob  has  no  flocks  or 
herds,  and  no  fear  of  the  Midianites,  and  pays  no 
tax  to  the  officer.  It  seemed  fit  that  Laban  and  Ja 
cob  should  have  equal  rights  to  elect  the  officer,  who 
is  to  defend  their  persons,  but  that  Laban,  and  not 
Jacob,  should  elect  the  officer  who  is  to  guard  the 
sheep  and  cattle.  And,  if  question  arise  whether 
additional  officers  or  watch-towers  should  be  pro 
vided,  must  not  Laban  and  Isaac,  and  those  who 
must  sell  part  of  their  herds  to  buy  protection  for 
the  rest,  judge  better  of  this,  and  with  more  right, 
than  Jacob,  who,  because  he  is  a  youth  and  a  trav 
eller,  eats  their  bread  and  not  his  own. 

In  the  earliest  society  the  proprietors  made  their 


POLITICS.  201 

own  wealth,  and  so  long  as  it  comes  to  the  owners  in 
the  direct  way,  no  other  opinion  would  arise  in  any 
equitable  community,  than  that  property  should 
make  the  law  for  property,  and  persons  the  law  for 
persons. 

But  property  passes  through  donation  or  inheri 
tance  to  those  who  do  not  create  it.  Gift,  in  one 
case,  makes  it  as  really  the  new  owner's,  as  labor 
made  it  the  first  owner's  :  in  the  other  case,  of  patri 
mony,  the  law  makes  an  ownership,  which  will  be 
valid  in  each  man's  view  according  to  the  estimate 
which  he  sets  on  the  public  tranquility. 

It  was  not,  however,  found  easy  to  embody  the 
readily  admitted  principle,  that  property  should 
make  law  for  property,  and  persons  for  persons  : 
since  persons  and  property  mixed  themselves  in 
every  transaction.  At  last  it  seemed  settled,  that 
the  rightful  distinction  was,  that  the  proprietors 
should  have  more  elective  franchise  than  the  non- 
proprietors,  on  the  Spartan  principle  of  "  calling  that 
which  is  just,  equal ;  not  that  which  is  equal,  just." 

That  principle  no  longer  looks  so  self-evident  as  it 
appeared  in  former  times,  partly,  because  doubts 
have  arisen  whether  too  much  weight  had  not  been 
allowed  in  the  laws,  to  property,  and  such  a  struc 
ture  given  to  our  usages,  as  allowed  the  rich  to  en- 


202  ESSAf  VtL 

croach  on  the  poor,  and  to  keep  them  poor ;  but 
mainly,  because  there  is  an  instinctive  sense,  how 
ever  obscure  and  yet  inarticulate,  that  the  whole 
constitution  of  property,  on  its  present  tenures,  is  in 
jurious,  and  its  influence  on  persons  deteriorating 
and  degrading  :  that  truly,  the  only  interest  for  the 
consideration  of  the  State,  is  persons :  that  property 
will  always  follow  persons  ;  that  the  highest  end  of 
government  is  the  culture  of  men  :  and  if  men  can 
be  educated,  the  institutions  will  share  their  improve 
ment,  and  the  moral  sentiment  will  write  the  law  of 
the  land. 

If  it  be  not  easy  to  settle  the  equity  of  this  ques 
tion,  the  peril  is  less  when  we  take  note  of  our  natu 
ral  defences.  We  are  kept  by  better  guards  than  the 
vigilance  of  such  magistrates  as  we  commonly  elect. 
Society  always  consists,  in  greatest  part,  of  young 
and  foolish  persons.  The  old,  who  have  seen  through 
the  hypocrisy  of  courts  and  statesmen,  die,  and  leave 
no  wisdom  to  their  sons.  They  believe  their  own 
newspaper,  as  their  fathers  did  at  their  age.  With 
such  an  ignorant  and  deceivable  majority,  States 
would  soon  run  to  ruin,  but  that  there  are  limita 
tions,  beyond  which  the  folly  and  ambition  of  govern 
ors  cannot  go.  Things  have  their  laws,  as  well  as 
men  ;  and  things  refuse  to  be  trifled  with.  Property 


POLITICS,  208 

will  be  protected.  Corn  will  not  grow,  unless  it  is 
planted  and  manured  ;  but  the  farmer  will  not  plant 
or  hoe  it,  unless  the  chances  are  a  hundred  to  one, 
that  he  will  cut  and  harvest  it.  Under  any  forms, 
persons  and  property  must  and  will  have  their  just 
sway.  They  exert  their  power,  as  steadily  as  matter 
its  attraction.  Cover  up  a  pound  of  earth  never  so 
cunningly,  divide  and  subdivide  it ;  melt  it  to  liquid, 
convert  it  to  gas ;  it  will  always  weigh  a  pound :  it 
will  always  attract  and  resist  other  matter,  by  the 
full  virtue  of  one  pound  weight ;  —  and  the  attributes 
of  a  person,  his  wit  and  his  moral  energy,  will  exer 
cise,  under  any  law  or  extinguishing  tyranny,  their 
proper  force, — if  not  overtly,  then  covertly ;  if  not 
for  the  law,  then  against  it ;  with  right,  or  by  might. 
The  boundaries  of  personal  influence  it  is  impos 
sible  to  fix, [as  persons  are  organs  of  moral  or  super-  v 
natural  force._  Under  the  dominion  of  an  idea, 
which  possesses  the  minds  of  multitudes,  as  civil 
freedom,  or  the  religious  sentiment,  the  powers  of 
persons  are  no  longer  subjects  of  calculation.  A  na 
tion  of  men  unanimously  bent  on  freedom,  or  con 
quest,  can  easily  confound  the  arithmetic  of  statists, 
and  achieve  extravagant  actions,  out  of  all  propor 
tion  to  their  means  ;  as,  the  Greeks,  the  Saracens, 
the  Swiss,  the  Americans,  and  the  French  have  done* 


204  ESSAY  vn. 

In  like  manner,  to  every  particle  of  property  be 
longs  its  own  attraction.  A  cent  is  the  representa 
tive  of  a  certain  quantity  of  corn  or  other  commodity. 
Its  value  is  in  the  necessities  of  the  animal  man.  It 
is  so  much  warmth,  so  much  bread,  so  much  water, 
so  much  land.  The  law  may  do  what  it  will  with 
the  owner  of  property,  its  just  power  will  still  attach 
to  the  cent.  The  law  may  in  a  mad  freak  say,  that 
all  shall  have  power  except  the  owners  of  property : 
they  shall  have  no  vote.  Nevertheless,  by  a  higher 
law,  the  property  will,  year  after  year,  write  every 
statute  that  respects  property.  The  non-proprietor 
will  be  the  scribe  of  the  proprietor.  What  the 
owners  wish  to  do,  the  whole  power  of  property  will 
do,  either  through  the  law,  or  else  in  defiance  of  it. 
Of  course,  I  speak  of  all  the  property,  not  merely  of 
the  great  estates.  When  the  rich  are  out- voted,  as 
frequently  happens,  it  is  the  joint  treasury  of  the 
poor  which  exceeds  their  accumulations.  Every 
man  owns  something,  if  it  is  only  a  cow,  or  a  wheel 
barrow,  or  his  arms,  and  so  has  that  property  to  dis 
pose  of. 

The  same  necessity  which  secures  the  rights  of 
person  and  property  against  the  malignity  or  folly  of 
the  magistrate,  determines  the  form  and  methods  of 
governing,  which  are  proper  to  each  nation,  and  to 


POLITICS.  205 

its  habit  of  thought,  and  nowise  transferable  to  other 
states  of  society.  In  this  country,  we  are  very  vain 
of  our  political  institutions,  which  are  singular  in 
this,  that  they  sprung,  within  the  memory  of  living 
men,  from  the  character  and  condition  of  the  people, 
which  they  still  express  with  sufficient  fidelity, — and 
we  ostentatiously  prefer  them  to  any  other  in  history. 
They  are  not  better,  but  only  litter  for  us.  We  may 
be  wise  in  asserting  the  advantage  in  modern  times 
of  the  democratic  form,  but  to  other  states  of  society, 
in  which  religion  consecrated  the  monarchical,  that 
and  not  this  was  expedient.  Democracy  is  better 
for  us,  because  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  present 
time  accords  better  with  it.  Born  democrats,  we  are 
nowise  qualified  to  judge  of  monarchy,  which,  to  our 
fathers  living  in  the  monarchical  idea,  was  also  rela 
tively  right.  But  our  institutions,  though  in  coinci 
dence  with  the  spirit  of  the  age,  have  not  any  exemp 
tion  from  the  practical  defects  which  have  discredited 
other  forms.  Every  actual  State  is  corrupt.  Good 
men  must  not  obey  the  laws  too  well.  What  satire 
on  government  can  equal  the  severity  of  censure 
conveyed  in  the  word  politic,  which  now  for  ages  has 
signified  cunning,  intimating  that  the  State  is  a  trick? 
The  same  benign  necessity  and  the  same  practical 
abuse  appear  in  the  parties  into  which  each  State 


206  ESSAY  vn. 

divides  itself,  of  opponents  and  defenders  of  the  ad 
ministration  of  the  government.  Parties  are  also 
founded  on  instincts,  and  have  better  guides  to  their 
own  humble  aims  than  the  sagacity  of  their  leaders. 
They  have  nothing  perverse  in  their  origin,  but 
rudely  mark  some  real  and  lasting  relation.  We 
might  as  wisely  reprove  the  east  wind,  or  the  frost, 
as  a  political  party,  whose  members,  for  the  most 
part,  could  give  no  account  of  their  position,  but 
stand  for  the  defence  of  those  interests  in  which  they 
find  themselves.  Our  quarrel  with  them  begins, 
when  they  quit  this  deep  natural  ground  at  the  bid 
ding  of  some  leader,  and,  obeying  personal  consider 
ations,  throw  themselves  into  the  maintenance  and 
defence  of  points,  nowise  belonging  to  their  system. 
A  party  is  perpetually  corrupted  by  personality. 
Whilst  we  absolve  the  association  from  dishonesty 
we  cannot  extend  the  same  charity  to  their  leaders. 
They  reap  the  rewards  of  the  docility  and  zeal  of  the 
masses  which  they  direct.  Ordinarily,  our  parties 
are  parties  of  circumstance,  and  not  of  principle  ;  as, 
the  planting  interest  in  conflict  with  the  commercial; 
the  party  of  capitalists,  and  that  of  operatives , 
parties  which  are  identical  in  their  moral  character, 
and  which  can  easily  change  ground  with  each  other, 
in  the  support  of  many  of  their  measures.  Parties 


POLITICS.  207 

of  principle,  as,  religious  sects,  or  the  party  of  free- 
trade,  of  universal  suffrage,  of  abolition  of  slavery,  of 
abolition  of  capital  punishment,  degenerate  into  per 
sonalities,  or  would  inspire  enthusiasm.  The  vice  of 
our  leading  parties  in  this  country  (which  may  be 
cited  as  a  fair  specimen  of  these  societies  of  opinion) 
is,  that  they  do  not  plant  themselves  on  the  deep 
and  necessary  grounds  to  which  they  are  respectively 
entitled,  but  lash  themselves  to  fury  in  the  carrying 
of  some  local  and  momentary  measure,  nowise  useful 
to  the  commonwealth.  Of  the  two  great  parties, 
which,  at  this  hour,  almost  share  the  nation  between 
them,  I  should  say,  that,  one  has  the  best  cause,  and 
the  other  contains  the  best  men.  The  philosopher, 
the  poet,  or  the  religious  man,  will,  of  course,  wish 
to  cast  his  vote  with  the  democrat,  for  free-trade,  for 
wide  suffrage,  for  the  abolition  of  legal  cruelties  in 
the  penal  code,  and  for  facilitating  in  every  manner 
the  access  of  the  young  and  the  poor  to  the  sources 
of  wealth  and  power.  But  he  can  rarely  accept  the 
persons  whom  the  so-called  popular  party  propose  to 
him  as  representatives  of  these  liberalities.  They 
have  not  at  heart  the  ends  which  give  to  the  name  of 
democracy  what  hope  and  virtue  are  in  it.  The 
spirit  of  our  American  radicalism  is  destructive  and 
aimless :  it  is  not  loving ;  it  has  no  ulterior  and  di- 


208  ESSAY  VII. 

vine  ends ;  but  is  destructive  only  out  of  hatred  and 
selfishness.  On  the  other  side,  the  conservative 
party,  composed  of  the  rnoet  moderate,  able,  and  cul 
tivated  part  of  the  population,  is  timid,  and  merely 
defensive  of  property.  It  vindicates  no  right,  it  as 
pires  to  no  real  good,  it  brands  no  crime,  it  proposes 
no  generous  policy,  it  does  not  build,  nor  write,  nor 
cherish  the  arts,  nor  foster  religion,  nor  establish 
schools,  nor  encourage  science,  nor  emancipate  the 
slave,  nor  befriend  the  poor,  or  the  Indian,  or  the 
immigrant.  From  neither  party,  when  in  power, has 
the  world  any  benefit  to  expect  in  science,  art,  or 
humanity,  at  all  commensurate  with  the  resources  of 
the  nation. 

I  do  not  for  these  defects  despair  of  our  republic. 
We  are  not  at  the  mercy  of  any  waves  of  chance.  In 
the  strife  of  ferocious  parties,  human  nature  always 
finds  itself  cherished,  as  the  children  of  the  convicts 
at  Botany  Bay  are  found  to  have  as  healthy  a  moral 
sentiment  as  other  children.  Citizens  of  feudal 
states  are  alarmed  at  our  democratic  institutions  laps 
ing  into  anarchy ;  and  the  older  and  more  cautious 
among  ourselves  are  learning  from  Europeans  to  look 
with  some  terror  at  our  turbulent  freedom.  It  is 
said  that  in  our  license  of  construing  the  Constitu 
tion,  and  in  the  despotism  of  public  opinion,  we  have 


POLITICS.  209 

no  anchor ;  and  one  foreign  observer  thinks  he  has 
found  the  safe-guard  in  the  sanctity  of  Marriage 
among  us ;  arid  another  thinks  he  has  found  it  in  our 
Calvinism.  Fisher  Ames  expressed  the  popular  se 
curity  more  wisely,  when  he  compared  a  monarchy 
and  a  republic,  saying,  "  that  a  monarchy  is  a  mer 
chantman,  which  sails  well,  but  will  sometimes  strike 
on  a  rock,  and  go  to  the  bottom  ;  whilst  a  republic 
is  a  raft,  which  would  never  sink,  but  then  your  feet 
are  always  in  water."  No  forms  can  have  any  dan 
gerous  importance,  whilst  we  are  befriended  by  the 
laws  of  things.  It  makes  no  difference  how  many 
tons  weight  of  atmosphere  presses  on  our  heads,  so 
long  as  the  same  pressure  resists  it  within  the  lungs. 
Augment  the  mass  a  thousand  fold,  it  cannot  begin 
to  crush  us,  as  long  as  reaction  is  equal  to  action. 
The  fact  of  two  poles,  of  two  forces,  centripetal  and 
centrifugal,  is  universal,  and  each  force  by  its  own 
activity  develops  the  other.  Wild  liberty  develops 
iron  conscience.  Want  of  liberty,  by  strengthening 
law  and  decorum,  stupefies  conscience.  'Lynch- 
law'  prevails  only  where  there  is  greater  hardihood 
and  self-subsistency  in  the  leaders.  A  mob  cannot 
be  a  permanency  :  every  body's  interest  requires  that 
it  should  not  exist,  and  only  justice  satisfies  all. 
We  must  trust  infinitely  to  the  beneficent  neces- 


210  ESSAY  VII. 

sity  which  shines  through  all  laws.  Human  nature 
expresses  itself  in  them  as  characteristically  as  in 
statues,  or  songs,  or  railroads,  and  an  abstract  of  the 
codes  of  nations  would  be  a  transcript  of  the  com 
mon  conscience.  Governments  have  their  origin  in 
the  moral  identity  of  men.  Reason  for  one  is  seen 
to  be  reason  for  another,  and  for  every  other.  There 
is  a  middle  measure  which  satisfies  all  parties,  be 
they  never  so  many,  or  so  resolute  for  their  own. 
Every  man  finds  a  sanction  for  his  simplest  claims 
and  deeds  in  decisions  of  his  own  mind,  which  he 
calls  Truth  and  Holiness.  In  these  decisions  all  the 
citizens  find  a  perfect  agreement,  and  only  in  these  ; 
not  in  what  is  good  to  eat,  good  to  wear,  good  use  of 
time,  or  what  amount  of  land,  or  of  public  aid,  each 
is  entitled  to  claim.  This  truth  and  justice  men 
presently  endeavor  to  make  application  of,  to  the 
measuring  of  land,  the  apportionment  of  service,  the 
protection  of  life  and  property.  Their  first  endeav 
ors,  no  doubt,  are  very  awkward.  Yet  absolute 
right  is  the  first  governor  ;  or,  every  government  is 
an  impure  theocracy.  The  idea,  after  which  each 
community  is  aiming  to  make  and  mend  its  law,  is, 
the  will  of  the  wise  man.  The  wise  man,  it  cannot 
find  in  nature,  and  it  makes  awkward  but  earnest 
efforts  to  secure  his  government  by  contrivance  ;  as, 


POLITICS.  211 

by  causing  the  entire  people  to  give  their  voices  on 
every  measure  ;  or,  by  a  double  choice  to  get  the 
representation  of  the  whole  ;  or,  by  a  selection  of  the 
best  citizens ;  or,  to  secure  the  advantages  of  effi 
ciency  and  internal  peace,  by  confiding  the  govern 
ment  to  one,  who  may  himself  select  his  agents.  All 
forms  of  government  symbolize  an  immortal  govern 
ment,  common  to  all  dynasties  and  independent  of 
numbers,  perfect  where  two  men  exist,  perfect  where 
there  is  only  one  man. 

Every  man's  nature  is  a  sufficient  advertisement 
to  him  of  the  character  of  his  fellows.  My  right  and 
my  wrong,  is  their  right  and  their  wrong.  Whilst  I 
do  what  is  fit  for  me,  and  abstain  from  what  is  unfit, 
my  neighbor  and  I  shall  often  agree  in  our  means, 
and  work  together  for  a  time  to  one  end.  But  when 
ever  I  find  rny  dominion  over  myself  not  sufficient 
for  me,  and  undertake  the  direction  of  him  also,  I 
overstep  the  truth,  and  come  into  false  relations  to 
him.  I  may  have  so  much  more  skill  or  strength 
than  he,  that  he  cannot  express  adequately  his  sense 
of  wrong,  but  it  is  a  lie,  and  hurts  like  a  lie  both 
him  and  me.  Love  and  nature  cannot  maintain  the 
assumption :  it  must  be  executed  by  a  practical  lie, 
namely,  by  force.  This  undertaking  for  another,  is 
the  blunder  which  stands  in  colossal  ugliness  in  the 


212  ESSAY  vn. 

governments  of  the  world.  It  is  the  same  thing  in 
numbers,  as  in  a  pair,  only  not  quite  so  intelligible. 
I  can  see  well  enough  a  great  difference  between  my 
setting  myself  down  to  a  self-control,  and  my  going 
to  make  somebody  else  act  after  my  views:  but 
when  a  quarter  of  the  human  race  assume  to  tell  me 
what  I  must  do,  I  may  be  too  much  disturbed  by  the 
circumstances  to  see  so  clearly  the  absurdity  of  their 
command.  Therefore,  all  public  ends  look  vague 
and  quixotic  beside  private  ones.  For,  any  laws 
but  those  which  men  make  for  themselves,  are  laugh 
able.  If  I  put  myself  in  the  place  of  my  child,  and 
we  stand  in  one  thought,  and  see  that  things  are  thus 
or  thus,  that  perception  is  law  for  him  and  me.  We 
are  both  there,  both  act.  But  if,  without  carrying 
him  into  the  thought,  I  look  over  into  his  plot,  and, 
guessing  how  it  is  with  him,  ordain  this  or  that,  he 
will  never  obey  me.  This  is  the  history  of  govern 
ments, — one  man  does  something  which  is  to  bind 
another.  A  man  who  cannot  be  acquainted  with 
me,  taxes  me;  looking  from  afar  at  me,  ordains  that 
n  part  of  my  labor  shall  go  to  this  or  that  whimsical 
end,  not  as  I,  but  as  he  happens  to  fancy.  Behold 
the  consequence.  Of  all  debts,  men  are  least  willing 
to  pay  the  taxes.  What  a  satire  is  this  on  govern* 


POLITICS.  218 

ment !     Everywhere  they  think  they  get  their  mon 
ey's  worth,  except  for  these. 

Hence,  the  less  government  we  have,  the  better, — 
the  fewer  laws,  and  the  less  confided  power.  The 
antidote  to  this  abuse  of  formal  Government,  is,  the 
'*  influence  of  private  character,  the  growth  of  the  In 
dividual  ;  the  appearance  of  the  principal  to  super 
sede  the  proxy;  the  appearance  of  the  wise  man,  of 
whom  the  existing  government,  is,  it  must  be  owned, 
but  a  shabby  imitation.  That  which  all  things  tend 
to  educe,  which  freedom,  cultivation,  intercourse, 
revolutions,  go  to  form  and  deliver,  is  character; 
that  is  the  end  of  nature,  to  reach  unto  this  corona 
tion  of  her  king.  To  educate  the  wise  mao,  the 
State  exists ;  and  with  the  appearance  of  the  wise 
man,  the  State  expires.  The  appearance  of  charac 
ter  makes  the  State  unnecessary.  The  wise  man  is 
the  State.  He  needs  no  army,  fort,  or  navy, — he 
loves  men  too  well ;  no  bribe,  or  feast,  or  palace,  to 
draw  friends  to  him  ;  no  vantage  ground,  no  favora 
ble  circumstance.  He  needs  no  library,  for  he  has 
not  done  thinking  ;  no  church,  for  he  is  a  prophet ; 
no  statute  book,  for  he  has  the  law-giver  ;  no  moneyv 
for  he  is  value ;  no  road,  for  he  is  at  home  where  he 
is ;  no  experience,  for  the  life  of  the  creator  shoots 
through  him,  and  looks  from  his  eyes.  He  has  no 


214  ESSAY  VH. 

personal  friends,  for  he  who  has  the  spell  to  draw  the 
prayer  and  piety  of  all  men  unto  him,  needs  not 
husband  and  educate  a  few,  to  share  with  him  a  se 
lect  and  poetic  life.  His  relation  to  men  is  angelic ; 
his  memory  is  myrrh  to  them  ;  his  presence,  frankin 
cense  and  flowers. 

We  think  our  civilization  near  its  meridian,  but 
we  are  yet  only  at  the  cock-crowing  and  the  morning 
star.  In  our  barbarous  society  the  influence  of  char 
acter  is  in  its  infancy.  As  a  political  power,  as  the 
rightful  lord  who  is  to  tumble  all  rulers  from  their 
chairs,  its  presence  is  hardly  yet  suspected.  Malthus 
and  Ricardo  quite  omit  it ;  the  Annual  Register  is 
silent ;  in  the  Conversations'  Lexicon,  it  is  not  set 
down  ;  the  President's  Message,  the  Queen's  Speech, 
have  not  mentioned  it ;  and  yet  it  is  never  nothing. 
Every  thought  which  genius  and  piety  throw  into 
the  world,  alters  the  world.  The  gladiators  in  the 
lists  of  power  feel,  through  all  their  frocks  of  force 
and  simulation,  the  presence  of  worth.  I  think  the 
very  strife  of  trade  and  ambition  are  confession  of 
this  divinity ;  and  successes  in  those  fields  are  the 
poor  amends,  the  fig-leaf  with  which  the  shamed  soul 
attempts  to  hide  its  nakedness.  I  find  the  like  un 
willing  homage  in  all  quarters.  It  is  because  we 
know  how  much  is  due  from  us,  that  we  are  impa« 


POLITICS.  £15 

tient  to  show  some  petty  talent  as  a  substitute  for 
worth.  We  are  haunted  by  a  conscience  of  this 
right  to  grandeur  of  character,  and  are  false  to  it. 
But  each  of  us  has  some  talent,  can  do  somewhat 
useful,  or  graceful,  or  formidable,  or  amusing,  or  luc 
rative.  That  we  do,  as  an  apology  to  others  and  to 
ourselves,  for  not  reaching  the  mark  of  a  good  and 
equal  life.  But  it  does  not  satisfy  ws,  whilst  we 
thrust  it  on  the  notice  of  our  companions.  It  may 
throw  dust  in  their  eyes,  but  does  not  smooth  our 
own  brow,  or  give  us  the  tranquility  of  the  strong 
when  we  walk  abroad.  We  do  penance  as  we  go. 
Our  talent  is  a  sort  of  expiation,  and  we  are  con 
strained  to  reflect  on  our  splendid  moment,  with  a 
certain  humiliation,  as  somewhat  too  fine,  and  not  as 
one  act  of  many  acts,  a  fair  expression  of  our  per 
manent  energy.  Most  persons  of  ability  meet  in 
society  with  a  kind  of  tacit  appeal.  Each  seems  to 
say,  '  I  am  not  all  here.'  Senators  and  presidents 
have  climbed  so  high  with  pain  enough,  not  because 
they  think  the  place  specially  agreeable,  but  as  an 
apology  for  real  worth,  and  to  vindicate  their  man 
hood  in  our  eyes.  This  conspicuous  chair  is  their 
compensation  to  themselves  for  being  of  a  poor,  cold, 
hard  nature.  They  must  do  what  they  can.  Like 
one  class  of  forest  animals,  they  have  nothing  but  ft 


216  ESSAY  VII. 

prehensile  tail :  climb  they  must,  or  crawl.  If  a  man 
found  himself  so  rich-natured  that  he  could  enter 
into  strict  relations  with  the  best  persons,  and  make 
life  serene  around  him  by  the  dignity  and  sweetness 
of  his  behavior,  could  he  afford  to  circumvent  the 
favor  of  the  caucus  and  the  press,  and  covet  rela 
tions  so  hollow  and  pompous,  as  those  of  a  politi 
cian?  Surely  nobody  would  be  a  charlatan,  who 
could  afford  to  be  sincere. 

The  tendencies  of  the  times  favor  the  idea  of  self- 
government,  and  leave  the  individual,  for  all  code,  to 
the  rewards  and  penalties  of  his  own  constitution, 
which  work  with  more  energy  than  we  believe,  whilst 
we  depend  on  artificial  restraints.  The  movement  in 
this  direction  has  been  very  marked  in  modern  his 
tory.  Much  has  been  blind  and  discreditable,  but 
the  nature  of  the  revolution  is  not  affected  by  the 
vices  of  the  revolters;  for  this  is  a  purely  moral 
force.  It  was  never  adopted  by  any  party  in  history, 
neither  can  be.  It  separates  the  individual  from  all 
party,  and  unites  him,  at  the  same  time,  to  the  race. 
It  promises  a  recognition  of  higher  rights  than  those 
of  personal  freedom,  or  the  security  of  property.  A 
man  has  a  right  to  be  employed,  to  be  trusted,  to  be 
loved,  to  be  revered.  The  power  of  love,  as  the 
basis  of  a  State,  has  never  been  tried.  We  must 


POLITICS.  217 

not  imagine  that  all  things  are  lapsing  into  confu, 
sion,  if  every  tender  protestant  be  not  compelled  to 
bear  his  part  in  certain  social  conventions :  nor 
doubt  that  roads  can  be  built,  letters  carried,  and  the 
fruit  of  labor  secured,  when  the  government  of  force 
is  at  an  end.  Are  our  methods  now  so  excellent  that 
all  competition  is  hopeless  ?  Could  not  a  nation  of 
friends  even  devise  better  ways?  On  the  other 
hand,  let  not  the  most  conservative  and  timid  fear 
anything  from  a  premature  surrender  of  the  bayonet, 
and  the  system  of  force.  For,  according  to  the  order 
of  nature,  which  is  quite  superior  to  our  will,  it 
stands  thus;  there  will  always  be  a  government  of 
force,  where  men  are  selfish  ;  and  when  they  are  pure 
enough  to  abjure  the  code  of  force,  they  will  be  wise 
enough  to  see  how  these  public  ends  of  the  post- 
office,  of  the  highway,  of  commerce,  and  the  ex 
change  of  property,  of  museums  and  libraries,  of  in 
stitutions  of  art  and  science,  can  be  answered. 

We  live  in  a  very  low  state  of  the  world,  and  pay 
unwilling  tribute  to  governments  founded  on  force. 
There  is  not,  among  the  most  religious  and  instructed 
men  of  the  most  religious  and  civil  nations,  a  reliance 
on  the  moral  sentiment,  and  a  sufficient  belief  in  the 
unity  of  things  to  persuade  them  that  society  can  be 
maintained  without  artificial  restraints,  as  well  as  the 


218  ESSAY  vn. 

solar  system  ;  or  that  the  private  citizen  might  be 
reasonable,  and  a  good  neighbor,  without  the  hint  of 
a  jail  or  a  confiscation.  What  is  strange  too,  there 
never  was  in  any  man  sufficient  faith  in  the  power  of 
rectitude,  to  inspire  him  with  the  broad  design  of  ren 
ovating  the  State  on  the  principle  of  right  and  love. 
All  those  who  have  pretended  this  design,  have  been 
partial  reformers,  and  have  admitted  in  some  manner 
the  supremacy  of  the  bad  State.  I  do  not  call  to 
mind  a  single  human  being  who  has  steadily  denied 
the  authority  of  the  laws,  on  the  simple  ground  of  his 
own  moral  nature.  Such  designs,  full  of  genius  and 
full  of  fate  as  they  are,  are  not  entertained  except 
avowedly  as  air-pictures.  If  the  individual  who  ex 
hibits  them,  dare  to  think  them  practicable,  he  dis 
gusts  scholars  and  churchmen ;  and  men  of  talent, 
and  women  of  superior  sentiments,  cannot  hide  their 
contempt.  Not  the  less  does  nature  continue  to  fill 
the  heart  of  youth  with  suggestions  of  this  enthugi- 
asm,  and  there  are  now  men, — if  indeed  I  can  speak 
in  the  plural  number, — more  exactly,  I  will  say,  I 
have  just  been  coversing  with  one  man,  to  whom  no 
weight  of  adverse  experience  will  make  it  for  a 
moment  appear  impossible,  that  thousands  of  human 
beings  might  exercise  towards  each  other  the  grand 
est  and  simplest  sentiments,  as  well  as  a  knot  o. 
friends*  or  a  pair  of  lovers. 


NOMINALIST  AND   EEALIST. 


In  countless  up  ward- striving  waves 

The  moon-drawn  tide-wave  strives; 

In  thousand  far-transplanted  grafts 

The  parent  fruit  survives  ; 

So,  in  the  new-born  millions, 

The  perfect  Adam  lives. 

Not  less  are  summer-mornings  dear 

To  every  child  they  wake, 

And  each  with  novel  life  his  sphere 

Fills  for  his  proper  sake. 


(219) 


ESSAY  VIII. 
NOMINALIST  AND  REALIST. 

I  I  CANNOT  often  enough  say,  that  a  man  is  only  a 
relative  and  representative  nature J  Each  is  a  hint 
of  thft  truth,  but  far  A^nngh  from  being  tnat  truth, 
which  yet  he  quite  newly  and  inevitably  suggests  to 
us.  (if  I  seek  it  in  him,  I  shall  not  find  iu  Could 
any  man  conduct  into  me  the  pure  stream  of  that 
which  he  pretends  to  be !  Long  afterwards,  I  find 
that  quality  elsewhere  which  he  promised  me.  The 
genius  of  the  Platonists,  is  intoxicating  to  the  stu 
dent,  yet  how  few  particulars  of  it  can  I  detach  from 
all  their  books.  The  man  momentarily  stands  for 
the,  thought,  but  will  not  bear  examination ;  and  a 
society  of  men  will  cursorily  represent  well  enough 
a  certain  quality  and  culture,  for  example,  chivalry 
or  beauty  of  manners,  but  separate  them,  and  there  is 
no  gentleman  and  no  lady  in  the  group(  The  least  hint 
sets  us  on  the  pursuit  of  a  character,  which  no  man 
realizes}  We  have  such  exorbitant  eyes,  that  on 

(221) 


222  ESSAY   TTII. 

seeing  the  smallest  arc,  we  complete  the  curve,  and 
when  the  curtain  is  lifted  from  the  diagram  which  it 
seemed  to  veil,  we  are  vexed  to  find  that  no  more 
was  drawn,  than  just  that  fragment  of  an  arc  which 
we  first  beheld.  We  are  greatly  too  liberal  iji -our 
construction  of  each  other's  faculty  and  promise. 
/Exactly  what  the  parties  have  already  done,  they 
shall  do  again  ;  but  that  which  we  inferred  from 
their  nature  and  inception,  they  will  not  do.  >  That 
is  in  nature,  but  not  in  them.  That  happens  in  the 
world,  which  we  often  witness  in  a  public  debate. 
Each  of  the  speakers  expresses  himself  imperfectly : 
no  one  of  them  hears  much  that  another  says,  such 
is  the  preoccupation  of  mind  of  each ;  and  the 
audience,  who  have  only  to  hear  and  not  to  speak, 
judge  very  wisely  and  superiorly  how  wrongheaded 
and  unskilful  is  each  of  the  debaters  to  his  own 
affair.  Great  men  or  men  of  great  gifts  you  shall 
easily  find,  but  symmetrical  men  never.  When  I 

/Ineet  a  pure  intellectual  force,  or  a  generosity  of  af 
fection,  I  believe,  here  then  is  man:  and  am  presently 
mortified  by  the  discovery,  that  this  individual  is  no 
more  available  to  his  own  or  to  the  general  ends, 
than  his  companions  ;  because  the  power  which  drew 
my  respect,  is  not  supported  by  the  total  symphony 

\of  his  talents.     All  persons  exist  to  society  by  some 


NOMINALIST   AND   REALIST.  223 


shining  trait  of  beauty  or  utility,  which  they 
We  borrow  the  proportions  of  the  man  from  that  one\ 
fine  feature,  and  finish  the  portrait  symmetrically; 
which  is  false  ;  for  the  rest  of  his  body  is  small  or  de 
formed.  I  observe  a  person  who  makes  a  good  public 
appearance,  and  conclude  thence  the  perfection  of 
his  private  character,  on  which  this  is  based  :  but  he 
has  no  private  character.  He  is  a  graceful  cloak  or 
lay-figure  for  holidays.  All  our  poets,  heroes,  and 
saints,  fail  utterly  in  some  one  or  in  many  parts  to 
satisfy  our  idea,  fail  to  draw  our  spontaneous  inter 
est,  and  so  leave  us  without  any  hope  of  realization 
but  in  our  own  future.  Our  exaggeration  of  all  fine 
characters  arises  from  the  fact,  that  we  identify  each 
in  turn  with  the  soul.  But  there  are  no  such  men  as 
we  fable  ;  no  Jesus,  nor  Pericles,  nor  Csesar,  nor 
Angelo,  nor  Washington,  such  as  we  have  made. 
We  consecrate  a  great  deal  of  nonsense,  because  it 
was  allowed  by  great  men.  xjiere  is  none  without 
his  foible.  I  verily  believe  if  an  angel  should  come 
to  chaunt  the  chorus  of  the  moral  law,  he  would  eat 
too  much  gingerbread,  or  take  liberties  with  private 
letters,  or  do  some  precious  atrocity.  It  is  bad 
enough,  that  our  geniuses  cannot  do  anything  use-  J 
ful,  but  it  is  worse  that  no  man  is  fit  for  society,  who  \ 
has  fine  traits.  He  is  admired  at  a  distance,  but  h«  / 


224  ESSAY  VIII. 

cannot  come  near  without  appearing  a  cripple.  The 
men  of  fine  parts  protect  themselves  by  solitude,  or 
by  courtesy,  or  by  satire,  or  by  an  acid  worldly  man 
ner,  each  concealing,  as  he  best  can,  his  incapacity  for 
useful  association,  but  they  want  either  love  or  self- 
reliance. 

Our  native  love  of  reality  joins  with  this  experience 
to  teach  us  a  little  reserve,  and  to  dissuade  a  too 
sudden  surrender  to  the  brilliant  qualities  of  persons. 
Young  people  admire  talents  or  particular  excel 
lences  ;  as  we  grow  older,  we  value  total  powers  and 
effects,  as,  the  impression,  the  quality,  the  spirit  of 
men  and  things.  The  genius  is  all.  The  man, — it 
is  his  system :  we  do  not  try  a  solitary  word  or  act, 
but  his  habit.  The  acts  which  you  praise,  I  praise 
not,  since  they  are  departures  from  his  faith,  and  are 
mere  compliances.  The  magnetism  which  arranges 
tribes  and  races  in  one  polarity,  is  alone  to  be  re 
spected  ;  the  men  are  steel-filings.  Yet  we  unjustly- 
select  a  particle,  and  say,  *  O  steel-filing  number 
one  !  what  heart-drawings  I  feel  to  thee  !  what  pro 
digious  virtues  are  these  of  thine  !  how  constitu 
tional  to  thee,  and  incommunicable.'  Whilst  we 
speak,  the  loadstone  is  withdrawn  ;  down  falls  our 
filing  in  a  heap  with  the  rest,  and  we  continue  our 
mummery  to  the  wretched  shaving.  Let  us  go  for 


NOMINALIST   AND  EBALIST.  225 

universals ;  for  the  magnetism,  not  for  the  needles. 
Human  life  and  its  persons  are  poor  empirical  pre 
tensions.  A  personal  influence  in  an  ignis  fatuus. 
If  they  say,  it  is  great,  it  is  great ;  if  they  say,  it  is 
small,  it  is  small ;  you  see  it,  and  you  see  it  not,  by 
turns :  it  borrows  all  its  size  from  the  momentary  esti 
ination  of  the  speakers:  the  Will-of-the-wisp  vanishes, 
if  you  go  too  near,  vanishes  if  you  go  too  far,  and 
only  blazes  at  one  angle.  Who  can  tell  if  Washing 
ton  be  a  great  man,  or  no?  Who  can  tell  if  Frank 
lin  be'?  Yes,  or  any  but  the  twelve,  or  six,  or  three 
great  gods  of  fame  ?  And  they,  too,  loom  and  fade 
before  the  eternal. 

We  are  amphibious  creatures,  weaponed  for  two 
elements,  having  two  sets  of  faculties,  the  particular 
and  the  catholic.  We  adjust  our  instrument  of  gen 
eral  observation,  and  sweep  the  heavens  as  easily  as 
we  pick  out  a  single  figure  in  the  terrestrial  land 
scape.  We  are  practically  skilful  in  detecting  ele 
ments,  for  which  we  have  no  place  in  our  theory,  and 
no  name.  Thus  we  are  very  sensible  of  an  atmos 
pheric  influence  in  men  and  in  bodies  of  men,  not 
accounted  for  in  an  arithmetical  addition  of  all  their 
measurable  properties.  There  is  a  genius  of  a  nation, 
which  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  numerical  citizens,  / 

but    which    characterizes    the    society.      England,^' 
15 


226  ESSAY  VIII. 

strong,  punctual,  practical,  well-spoken  England,  I 
should  not  find,  if  I  should  go  to  the  island  to  seek 
it.  In  the  parliament,  in  the  playhouse,  at  dinner- 
tables,  I  might  see  a  great  number  of  rich,  ignorant, 
book-read,  conventional,  proud  men, — many  old 
women, — and  not  anywhere  the  Englishman  who 
made  the  good  speeches,  combined  the  accurate  en 
gines,  and  did  the  bold  and  nervous  deeds.  It  is 
even  worse  in  America,  where,  from  the  intellectual 
/quickness  of  the  race,  the  genius  of  the  country  is 
more  splendid  in  its  promise,  and  more  slight  in  its 
performance.  Webster  cannot  do  the  work  of  Web 
ster.  We  conceive  distinctly  enough  the  French, 
the  Spanish,  the  German  genius,  and  it  is  not  the  less 
real,  that  perhaps  we  should  riot  meet  in  either  of 
those  nations,  a  single  individual  who  corresponded 
with  the  type.  We  infer  the  spirit  of  the  nation  in 
great  measure  from  the  language,  which  is  a  sort  of 
monument,  to  which  each  forcible  individual  in  a 
course  of  many  hundred  years  has  contributed  a 
stone.  And,  universally,  a  good  example  of  this 
social  force,  is  the  veracity  of  language,  which  con- 
not  be  debauched.  In  any  controversy  concerning 
morals,  an  appeal  may  be  made  with  safety  to  the 
sentiments,  which  the  language  of  the  people  ex 
presses.  Proverbs,  words,  and  grammar  inflections 


NOMINALIST   AND  REALIST.  227 

convey  the  public  sense  with  more  purity  and  preci 
sion,  than  the  wisest  individual. 

In  the  famous  dispute  with  the  Nominalists,  the\ 
Realists  had  a  good  deal  of  reason.     General  ideas  j 
are  essences.     They  are  our  gods:  they  round  and  / 
ennoble  the  most  partial  and  sordid  way  of  living./ 
Our  proclivity  to  details   cannot  quite  degrade  ourl 
life,  and  divest  it  of  poetry.     The  day-laborer  is  reck-/ 
oned  as  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  social  scale,  yet  he 
is  saturated  with  the  laws  of  the  world.   His  measures 
are  the  hours  ;  morning  and  night,  solstice  and  equi 
nox,  geometry,  astronomy,  and  all  the  lovely  accidents 
of  nature  play  through  his  mind.  Money,  which  re p- 
resents  the  prose  of  life,  and  which  is  hardly  spoken 
of  in   parlors  without  an   apology,  is,  in  its  effects 
arid  laws,  as  beautiful  as  roses.     Property  keeps  the 
accounts   of  the  world,  and  is  always  moral.     The 
property  will  be  found  where  the  labor,  the  wisdom, 
and  the  virtue  have  been  in  nations,  in  classes,  and 
(the  whole  life-time  considered,  with  the  compensa- j 
tions)  in  the  individual  also.     How  wise  the  world  i 
appears,  when  the  laws  and   usages  of  nations  are 
largely  detailed,  and  the  completeness  of  the  munic 
ipal  system   is  considered  !     Nothing  is  left  out.     If 
you    go   into   the  markets,  and  the    custom-houses, 
the  insurers'  and  notaries'  offices,  the  offices  of  sealers 


228  ESSAY  VIII. 

of  weights  and  measures,  of  inspection  of  provisions, 
r^^-ii,    will     appear  as  if  one  man  had  made  it  all. 
/    Wherever  you  go,  a  wit  like  your  own  has  been  be- 
y  fore  you,  and  has  realized  its  thought.     The  Eleu- 
sinian    mysteries,    the    Egyptain    architecture,    the 
Indian  astronomy,  the  Greek  sculpture,  show  that 
there  always  were  seeing   and  knowing  men  in  the 
planet.     The  world  is  full  of  masonic  ties,  of  guilds, 
of    secret    and    public  legions   of    honor;    that   of 
scholars,  for  example ;  and  that  of  gentlemen  frat 
ernizing  with  the  upper  class  of  every  country  and 
every  culture. 

I  am  very  much  struck  in  literature  by  the  appear 
ance,  that  one  person  wrote  all  the  books  ;  as  if  the 
editor  of  a  journal  planted  his  body  of  reporters  in 
different  parts  of  the  field  of  action,  and  relieved 
some  by  others  from  time  to  time  ;  but  there  is  such 
equality  and  identity  both  of  judgment  and  point  of 
view  in  the  narrative,  that  it  is  plainly  the  work  of 
one  all-seeing,  all-hearing  gentleman.  I  looked  into 
Pope's  Odyssey  yesterday :  it  is  as  correct  and  ele 
gant  after  our  canon  of  to-day,  as  if  it  were  newly 
written.  The  modernness  of  all  good  books  seems  to 
give  me  an  existence  as  wide  as  man.  What  is  well 
done,  I  feel  as  if  I  did  ;  what  is  ill-done,  I  reck  not 
of.  Shakspeare's  passages  of  passion  (for  example, 


NOMINALIST   AND   REALIST.  229 

in  Lear  and  Hamlet)  are  in  the  very  dialect  of  the 
present  year.     I  am  faithful  again  to  the  whole  over 
the  members  in  my  use  of  books.     I  mid  the  most 
pleasure  in  reading  a  book  in  a  manner  least  flatter 
ing  to   the  author?)  I  read  Proclus,  and  sometimes 
Plato,  as  I  might  read  a  dictionary,  for  a  mechanical 
help  to  the   fancy  and  the  imagination.  (^  I  read  for 
the  lustres,  as  if  one  should  use  a  fine  picture  in  a 
chromatic  experiment,  for  its  rich  colors.     'Tis  not 
Proclus,  but  a  piece  of  nature  and  fate  that  I  explore. 
It  is  a  greater  joy  to  see   the  author's  author,  than 
himself.    A  higher  pleasure  of  the  same  kind  I  found 
lately  at  a  concert,  where  I  went  to  hear  Handel's 
Messiah.  \As  the  master  overpowered  the  littleness 
and  incapableness  of  the  performers,  and  made  them 
conductors  of  his  electricity,  so  it  was  easy  to  observe  \ 
what  efforts  nature  was  making  through  so  many  1 
hoarse,  wooden,  and  imperfect  persons,  to  producef 
beautiful   voices,   fluid    and   soul-guided    men    and/ 
women .    Tlua.gfiniua  of  nature .... .w.a&.par.anipun .  t jatj^he) 
oratorio.  ^ 

This  preference  of  the  genius  to  the  parts  is  the 
secret  of  that  deification  of  art,  which  is  found  in  all 
superior  minds.  Art,  in  the  artist,  is  proportion,  or, 
a  habitual  respect  tc  the  whole  by  an  eye  loving 
beauty  in  details.  And  the  wonder  and  charm  of  it 


230  ESSAY  Vltt. 

is  the  sanity  in  insanity  which  it  denotes.  Propor 
tion  is  almost  impossible  to  human  beings.  There  is 
no  one  who  does  not  exaggerate.  In  conversation, 
men  are  encumbered  with  personality,  and  talk  too 
much.  In  modern  sculpture,  picture,  and  poetry, 
the  beauty  is  miscellaneous  ;  the  artist  works  here 
and  there,  and  at  all  points,  adding  and  adding,  in 
stead  of  unfolding  the  unit  of  his  thought.  Beautiful 
details  we  must  have,  or  no  artist :  but  they  must  be 
means  and  never  other.  The  eye  must  not  lose  sight 
for  a  moment  of  the  purpose.  Lively  boys  write  to 
their  ear  and  eye,  and  the  cool  reader  finds  nothing 
but  sweet  jingles  in  it.  When  they  grow  older,  they 
respect  the  argument. 

We  obey  the  same  intellectual  integrity,  when  we 
study  in  exceptions  the  law  of  the  world.  Anoma 
lous  facts,  as  the  never  quite  obsolete  rumors  of 
magic  and  demonology,  and  the  new  allegations  of 
phrenologists  and  neurologists,  are  of  ideal  use. 
They  are  good  indications.  Homoeopathy  is  insig 
nificant  as  an  art  of  healing,  but  of  great  value  as 
criticism  on  the  hygeia  or  medical  practice  of  the 
time.  So  with  Mesmerism,  Swedenborgism,  Fourier- 
ism,  and  the  Millennial  Church ;  they  are  poor  pre 
tensions  enough,  but  good  criticism  on  the  science, 
philosophy,  and  preaching  of  the  day.  For  these  ab- 


NOMINALIST    AND   REALIST.  231 

normal   insights  of  the  adepts,  ought  to  be  normal, 
and  things  of  course. 

All  things_sho\y  us,  that  on  every  side  we  are  very 
near  to  the  best.  It  seems  not  worth  while  to  exe 
cute  with  too  much  pains  some  one  intellectual,  or  I 

resthetical,  or  civil  feat,  when   presently  the   dream 

Vs. 
will  scatter,  and  we  shall  burst  into  universal  power.  * 

/  The  reason  of  idleness  and  of  crime  is  the  deferring 
of^our_ hopes.  Whilst  we  are  waiting,  we  beguile 
the  time  with  jokes,  with  sleep,  with  eating,  and  with 
crimes. 

Thus  we  settle  it  in  our  cool  libraries,  that  all  the 
agents  with  which  we  deal  are  subalterns,  which  we 
can  well  afford  to  let  pass,  and  life  will  be  simpler 
when  we  live  at  the  centre,  and  flout  the  surfaces.  I 
wish  to  speak  with  all  respect  of -persons,  but  some 
times  I  must  pinch  myself  to  keep  awake,  and  pre 
serve  the  due  decorum.  They  melt  so  fast  into  each 
other,  that  they  are  like  grass  and  trees,  and  it  needs 
an  effort  to  treat  them  as  individuals.  Though  the 
uninspired  man  certainly  finds  persons  a  conveniency 
in  household  matters,  the  divine  man  does  not  re 
spect  them  :  he  sees  them  as  a  rack  of  clouds,  or  a 
fleet  of  ripples  which  the  wind  drives  over  the  sur 
face  of  the  water.  But  this  is  flat  rebellion.  Nature 


232  ESSAY  VIII. 

will  not  be  Buddhist :  she  resents  generalizing,  and 
insults  the  philosopher  in  every  moment  with  a  mil 
lion  of  fresh  particulars.  It  is  all  idle  talking :  as 
much  as  a  man  is  a  whole,  so  is  he  also  a  part ;  and 
it  were  partial  not  to  see  it.  What  you  say  in  your 
pompous  distribution  only  distributes  you  into  your 
class  and  section.  You  have  not  got  rid  of  parts  by 
denying  them,  but  are  the  more  partial.  You  are 
one  thing,  but  nature  is  one  thing  and  the  other  thing^ 
in  the  same  moment.  She  will  not  remain  orbed  in 
a  thought,  but  rushes  into  persons  ;  and  when  each 
^person,  inflamed  to  a  fury  of  personality,  would  con- 
I  quer  all  things  to  his  poor  crotchet,  she  raises  up 

i  against  him  another  person,  and  by  many  persons  in- 

I  carnates  again  a  sort  of  whole.  She  will  have  all. 
Nick  Bottom  cannot  play  all  the  parts,  work  it  how 
he  may ;  there  will  be  somebody  else,  and  the  world 
will  be  round.  Everything  must  have  its  flower  or 
effort  at  the  beautiful,  coarser  or  finer  according  to 

/Its  stuff.  They  relieve  and  recommend  each  other, 
and  the  sanity  of  society  is  a  balance  of  a  thousand 
insanities.  She  punishes  abstractionists,  and  will 
only  forgive  an  induction  which  is  rare  and  casual. 
We  like  to  come  to  a  height  of  land  and  see  the  land 
scape,  just  as  we  value  a  general  remark  in  con  versa- 

\tion.     But  it  is  not  the  intention  of  nature  that  we 


NOMINALIST  AND  BEALIST.  238 

should  live  by  general  views.  We  fetch  fire  and 
water,  run  about  all  day  among  the  shops  and  mar 
kets,  and  get  our  clothes  and  shoes  made  and  mended, 

and  are  the  victims  of  these  details,  and^once  in  a    /.-r. 

r"\  r 
fortnight  we  arrive  perhaps  at  a  rational  momenU 

If  we  were  not  thus  infatuated/ if  we  saw  the  real  \ 
from  hour  to  hour,  we  should  not  be  here  to  write  N, 
and  to  read,  but  should  have  been  burned  or  frozen  j 
long  ago.  She  would  never  get  anything  done,  if 
she  suffered  admirable  Crichtons,  and  universal  ge 
niuses.  She  loves  better  a  wheelwright  who  dreams 
all  night  of  wheels,  and  a  groom  who  is  part  of  his 
horse :  for  she  is  full  of  work,  and  these  are  her 
hands.  As  the  frugal  farmer  takes  care  that  his 
cattle  shall  eat  down  the  rowan,  and  swine  shall  eat 
the  waste  of  his  house,  and  poultry  shall  pick  the 
crumbs/so  our  economical  mother  despatches  a  new 
genius  and  habit  of  mind  into  every  district  and  con 
dition  of  existence,  plants  an  eye  wherever  a  new 
ray  of  light  can  fall,  and  gathering  up  into  some  man 
every  property  in  the  universe,  establishes  thousand 
fold  occult  mutual  attractions  among  her  offspring, 
that  all  this  wash  and  waste  of  power  may  be  im 
parted  and  exchanged. 

xx"Trreat  dangers   undoubtedly  accrue  from  this  in- 
\carnation  and  distribution  of  the  godhead,  and  hence 


234  ESSAY  vm. 

nature  has  her  maligners,  as  if  she  were  Circe  ;  and 
Alphonso  of  Castille  fancied  he  could  have  given 
useful  advice.  But  she  does  not  go  unprovided  ; 
she  has  hellebore  at  the  bottom  of  the  cup.  Soli- 
5*  itude  would  ripen  a  plentiful  crop  of  despots.  The 
recluse  thinks  of  men  as  having  his  manner,  or  as 

O  ' 

not  having  his  manner  ;  and  as  having  degrees  of  it, 
more  and  less.  But  when  he  comes  into  a  public  as 
sembly,  he  sees  that  men  have  very  different  man- 
"/ners  from  his  own,  and  in  their  way  admirable.  In 
his  childhood  and  youth,  he  has  had  many  checks 
and  censures,  and  thinks  modestly  enough  of  his 
own  endowment.  When  afterwards  he  comes  to 
unfold  it  in  propitious  circumstance,  it  seems  the  only 
talent :  he  is  delighted  with  his  success,  and  ac 
counts  himself  already  the  fellow  of  the  great.  But 
he  goes  into  a  mob,  into  a  banking-house,  into  a 
mechanic's  shop,  into  a  mill,  into  a  laboratory,  into 
a  ship,  into  a  camp,  and  in  each  new  place  he  is  no 
better  than  an  idiot :  other  talents  take  place,  and 
rule  the  hour.  The  rotation  which  whirls  every 
leaf  and  pebble  to  the  meridian,  reaches  to  every 
gift  of  man,  and  we  all  take  turns  at  the  top. 

For  nature,  who  abhors  mannerism,  has  set  her 
heart  on  breaking  up  all  styles  and  tricks,  and  it  is 
so  much  easier  to  do  what  one  has  done  before,  than 


NOMINALIST  AND  &EALI8T.  235 

to  do  a  new  thing,  that  there  is  a  perpetual  tendency  £. 
to   a  set  mode.     In  every   conversation,   even   the 
highest,  there  is  a  certain  trick,  which  may  be  soon 
learned  by  an  acute  person,  and  then  that  particular 
style    continued   indefinitely.    (Each   man,  too,  is  a 
tyrant   in  tendency,    because  he    would  impose  his) 
idea  on    others;  and  their  trick  is  their  natural  de-J 
fenceA     Jesus   would   absorb  the   race;    but   Tom) 
Paine  or  the  coarsest  blasphemer  helps  humanity  by 
resisting  this  exuberance  of  power.     Hence  the  imX 
mense  benefit  of  party  in  politics,  as  it  reveals  faults  \ 
of  character   in  a  chief,  which  the  intellectual  force    V^ 
of  the  persons,  with  ordinary  opportunity,  and  not 

hurled  into  aphelion  by  hatred,  could  not  have  seen.  / 

f*~'  / 

(jSince  we   are  all   so  stupid,  what  benefit  that  there 

should  be  two  stupidities  IJ  It  is  like  that  brute  ad 
vantage  so  essential  to  astronomy,  of  having  the  di 
ameter  of  the  earth's  orbit  for  a  base  of  its  triangles. 
(Democracy  is   morose,  and  runs  to  anarchy,  but  in 
the  state,    and  in  the  schools,  it  is  indispensable  to 
resist  the  consolidation  of  all  men  into  a  few  men) 
If  John  was  perfect,  why  are  you  and  I  alive  ?     As) 
long  as   any  man  exists,  there  is  some  need  of  him ;) 
let  him  fight  for  his  own.     A  new  poet  has  appeared  : ' 
a   new  character  approached  us  ;  why  should  we  re 
fuse  to  eat  bread,  until  we  have  found  his  regiment 


236  ESSAY  vttt 

and  section  in  our  old  army-files  ?  vtVhy  not  a  new 
man  f^j  Here  is  a  new  enterprise  of  Brook  Farm,  of 
Skeneateles,  of  Northampton  :  why  so  impatient  to 
baptise  them  Essenes,  or  Port-Royalists,  or  Shakers, 
or  by  any  known  and  effete  name  ?  Let  it  be  a  new 
way  of  living.  Why  have  only  two  or  three  ways 
of  life,  and  not  thousands  ?  Every  man  is  wanted, 
and  no  man  is  wanted  much.v  We  came  this  time 

W_  !!•'  '  '  '""""""X  ^ 

for  condiments,  not  for  corn.  We  want  the  great 
genius  only  for  joy ;  for  one  star  more  in  our  con 
stellation,  for  one  tree  more  in  our  grove.  But  he 
thinks  we  wish  to  belong  to  him,  as  he  wishes  to  oc 
cupy  us.  He  greatly  mistakes  us.  I  think  I  have 
done  well,  if  I  have  acquired  a  new  word  from  a 
good  author;  and  my  business  with  him  is  to  find 
my  own,  though  it  were  only  to  melt  him  down  into 
an  epithet  or  an  image  for  daily  use. 

"  Into  paint  will  I  grind  thee,  my  bride  !  " 

To  embroil  the  confusion,  and  make  it  impossible 
to  arrive  at  any  general  statement,  when  we  have 
insisted  on  the  imperfection  of  individuals,  our  af 
fections  and  our  experience  urge  that  every  individ 
ual  is  entitled  to  honor,  and  a  very  generous  treat 
ment  is  sure  to  be  repaid.  A  recluse  sees  only  two 
or  three  persons,  and  allows  them  all  their  room ; 


NOMINALIST   AND   KEALIST.  237 

th3y  spread  themselves  at  large.  The  man  of  state 
looks  at  many,  and  compares  the  few  habitually  with 
others,  and  these  look  less.  Yet  are  they  not  en 
titled  to  this  generosity  of  reception?  and  is  not 
munificence  the  means  of  insight?  For  though 
gamesters  say,  that  the  cards  beat  all  the  players, 
though  they  were  never  so  skilful,  yet  in  the  contest 
we  are  now  considering,  the  players  are  also  the 
game,  and  share  the  power  of  the  cards.  If  you 
criticise  a  fine  genius,  the  odds  are  that  you  are  out 
of  you:  reckoning,  and,  instead  of  the  poet,  are  cen 
suring  your  own  caricature  of  him.  For  there  is 
somewhat  spheral  and  infinite  in  every  man,  espe 
cially  in  every  genius,  which,  if  you  can  come  very 
near  him,  sports  with  all  your  limitations.  For,N 
rightly  every  man  is  a  channel  through  which  heaven/ 
floweth,  arid,  whilst  I  fancied  I  was  criticising  him,  I  ) 
was  censuring  or  rather  terminating  my  own  souLJ 
After  taxing  Goethe  as  a  courtier,  artificial,  unbe* 
lieving,  worldly,— I  took  up  this  book  of  Helena, 
and  found  him  an  Indian  of  the  wilderness,  a  piece 
of  pure  nature  like  an  apple  or  an  cak,  large  as  morn 
ing  or  night,  and  virtuous  as  a  briar-rose, 

<£$ut  care  is  taken  that  the  whole  tune  shall  be  played. 
If  we  were  not  kept  among  surfaces,  every  thitig 
would  be  la-rga  and  universal  7\iow  the  excluded  ^fc 


238  ESSAY  VIII. 

tributes  burst  in  on  us  with  the  more  brightness, 
that  they  have  been  excluded.  "  Your  turn  now, 
my  turn  next/'  is  the  rule  of  the  game.  The 
(universality  being  hindered  in  its  primary  form, 
comes  in  the  secondary  form  of  all  sides :  the  points 
come  in  succession  to  the  meridian,  and  by  the  speed 
of  rotation,  a  new  whole  is  formed/)  Nature  keeps 
herself  whole,  and  her  representation  complete  in 
the  experience  of  each  mind.  She  suffers  no  seat  to 


be  vacant  in  her  college.  It  is  the  secret  of  the 
world  that  all  things  subsist,  and  do  not  die,  but 
only  retire  a  little  from  sight,  and  afterwards  return 
gain.  Whatever  does  not  concern  us,  is  concealed 
from  us.  As  soon  as  a  person  is  no  longer  related 
to  our  present  well-being,  he  is  concealed,  or  dies,  as 
we  say.  Really,  all  things  and  persons  are  related 
to  us,  but  according  to  our  nature,  they  act  on  us 
not  at  once,  but  in  succession,C"and  we  are  made 
aware  of  their  presence  one  at  a  time>  All  persons, 
all  things  which  we  have  known,  are  here  present, 
and  many  more  than  we  see  ;  the  world  is  full.  As 
the  ancient  said,  the  world  is  a  plenum  or  solid ;  and 
>>  if  we  saw  all  things  that  really  surround  us,  we 
should  be  imprisoned  and  unable  to  move.  For, 
though  nothing  is  impassable  to  the  soul,.,  but  all 
things  are  pervious  to  it,  and  like  highways,  yet  this 


NOMINALIST  AND   REALIST.  239 

is  only  whilst  the  soul  does  not  see  them.  As  soon 
as  the  soul  sees  any  object,  it  stops  before  that  ob 
ject.  Therefore,  the  divine  Providence,  which  keeps 
the  universe  open  in  every  direction  to  the  soul,  con 
ceals  all  the  furniture  and  all  the  persons  that  do 
not  concern  a  particular  soul,  from  the  senses  of  that 
individual.  Through  solidest  eternal  things,  th\ 
man  finds  his  road,  as  if  they  did  not  subsist,  and 
does  not  once  suspect  their  being.  As  soon  as  he 
needs  a  new  object,  suddenly  he  beholds  it,  and  no 
longer  attempts  to  pass  through  it,  but  takes  another 
way.  When  he  has  exhausted  for  the  time  the' 
nourishment  to  be  drawn  from  any  one  person  or 
thing,  that  object  is  withdrawn  from  his  observation, 
and  though  still  in  his  immediate  neighborhood,  he 
does  not  suspect  its  presence. 

Nothing  is  dead :  men  feign  themselves  dead,  and 
endure  mock  funerals  and  mournful  obituaries,  and 
there  they  stand  looking  out  of  the  window,  sound 
and  well,  in  some  new  and  strange  disguise.  Jesus 
is  not  dead :  he  is  very  well  alive  :  nor  John,  nor 
Paul,  nor  Mahomet,  nor  Aristotle ;  at  times  we  be 
lieve  we  have  seen  them  all,  and  could  easily  tell  the 
names  under  which  they  go. 

If  we   cannot  make  voluntary  and  conscious  steps? 
in  the  admirable  science  of  universals,  let  us  see  the/ 


240  ESSAY  VIII. 

parts  wisely,  and  infer  the  genius _qf jnature_  from  the 

best  particulars  with  a  becoming  charity.     What  is 

best  in  each  kind  is  an  index  of  what  should  be  the 

average  of  that  thing.  /Love  shows  me  the  opulence 

i  of  nature,  by  disclosing  to  me  in  my  friend  a  hidden 

( wealth,  and  I  infer  an  equal  depth  of  good  in  every 

I  other   direction/.     It   is   commonly  said  by  farmers, 

that  a  good  pear  or  apple  costs  no  more  time  or  pains 

to  rear,  than  a  poor  one  f^so  I  would  have  no  work 

of  art,  no  speech,   or  action,  or  thought,  or  friend, 

but  the  best.) 

The  ^nd  and  the  means^  the  gamester  and  the 
game, — life  -i&-^mde--ii^_ofthe  intermixture  and  re 
action  of  these  two  amicable  powers,  whose  marriage 
appears  beforehand  monstrous,  as  each  denies  and 
tends  to  abolish  the  other.  We  must  reconcile  the 
contradictions  as  we  can,  but  their  discord  and 
"\their  concord  introduce  wild  absurdities  into  our 
thinking  and  speech.  (No  sentence  will  hold  the 
/P  whole  truth,  and  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  be 
just,  is  by  giving  ourselves  the  Kg ;  Speech  is  better 
than  silence  ;  silence  is  better  than  speech ; — All 
things  are  in  contact ;  every  atom  has  a  sphere  of 
repulsion  ; — Things  are,  and  are  not,  at  the  same 
time  ;— and  the  like.  All  the  universe  over,  there  is 
but  one  thing,  this  old  Two-Face,  creator-creature, 


NOMINALIST  AND  REALIST.  241 

orind -matter,  right- wrong,  of  which  any  proposition 
may  be  affirmed  or  deniedc     Very  fitly,  therefore,  I  as 
sert,   that   every    man   is   a   partialist,    that   nature    * 
secures  him   as   an   instrument   by  self-conceit,  pre-    - 
venting  the  tendencies  to  religion  and  science;  and 
now  further  assert,  that,   each'  man's  genius  being"} 
nearly  and  affectionately  explored,  he  is  justified  in(   , 
his  individuality,  as  his  nature  is  found  to  be  im4 
mense7)and  now  I  add,  that  every  man  is  a  univer/ 
salist  also,  and,  as  our  earth,  whilst  it  spins  on  its 
own  axis,  spins  all  the  time  around  the  sun  through 
the    celestial   spaces,    so   the    least   of    its   rationaK 
children,  the   most   dedicated  to  his  private  affair,/ 
works  out,  though  as  it  were    under  a  disguise,  the  I 
universal  problem.     We  fancy  men  are  individuals  ; 
so  are  pumpkins ;  bat  every  pumpkin  in  the  field, 
goes  through  every  point  of  pumpkin  history.     The 
rabid  democrat,  as  soon   as  he  is  senator  and  rich 
man,  has  ripened  beyond  possibility  of  sincere  radi 
calism,  and  unless  he  can  resist  the  sun,  he  must  be 
conservative  the  remainder  of  his  days.   Lord  Eldon 
said  in  his  old  age,  "  that  if  he  were  to  begin  life 
again,  he  would  be  damned  but  he  would  begin  as 
agitator." 

We  hide  this  universality,  if  we  can,  but  it  ap-  , 

pears  at  _all  points.     We  are  as  ungrateful  as  chil- 
16 


242  ESSAY   VIII. 

dreo.  T^ere  is  nothing  we  cherish  and  strive  to) 
draw  to  us,  but  in  some  hour  we  turn  and  rend  it.) 
We  keep  a  running  fire  of  sarcasm  at  ignorance  and 
the  life  of  the  senses ;  then  goes  by,  perchance,  a 
fair  girl,  a  piece  of  life,  gay  and  happy,  and  making 
the  commonest  offices  beautiful,  by  the  energy  and 
heart  with  which  she  does  them,  and  seeing  this,  we 
admire  and  love  her  and  them,  and  say,  "Lo!  a 
genuine  creature  of  the  fair  earth,  not  dissipated,  or 
too  early  ripened  by  books,  philosophy,  religion,  so 
ciety,  or  care!"  insinuating  a  treachery  and  con 
tempt  for  all  we  had  so  long  loved  and  wrought  in 
ourselves  and  others. 

If  we  could  have  any  security  against  moods !     If 
the  profoundest   prophet   could   be   holden   to   his 
words,  and  the  hearer  who  is  ready  to  sell  all   and 
join  the  crusade,  could  have  any  certificate  that  to 
morrow  his  prophet  shall  not  unsay  his  testimony ! 
But  the  Truth  sits  veiled  there  on  the  Bench,  and 
never  interposes  an  adamantine  syllable;  and   the 
/  most  sincere  and  revolutionary  doctrine,  put  as  if  the 
Nark  of  God  were  carried  forward  some  furlongs,  and 
Q  planted  there  for  the  succor  of  the  world,  shall  in  a 
iew  weeks  be  coldly  set  aside  by  the  same  speaker, 
is  morbid;  "I  thought  I  was  right,  but  I  was  not," 
—and  the  same  immeasurable  credulity  demanded 


NOMINALIST   AND   REALIST.  248 

for  new  audacities.  If  we  were  not  of  all  opinions ! 
if  we  did  not  in  any  moment  shift  the  platform  on 
which  we  stand,  and  look  and  speak  from  another ! 
if  there  could  be  any  regulation,  any  '  one -hour-rule/ 
that  a  man  should  never  leave  his  point  of  view, 
without  sound  of  trumpet.  I  am  always  insincere,  as  /  v 
always  knowing  there  are  other  moods. 

How  sincere  and  confidential  we  can  be,  saying  allv 
that  lies  in  the  mind,  and  yet  go  away  feeling  that  J 
all  is  yet  unsaid,  from  the  incapacity  of  the  parties^  ^ 
to  know  each  other,  although  they  use  the  samW 
words !  My  companion  assumes  to  know  my  mood 
and  habit  of  thought,  and  we  go  on  from  explana 
tion  to  explanation,  until  all  is  said  which  words  can, 
and  we  leave  matters  just  as  they  were  at  first,  be 
cause  of  that  vicious  assumption.  Is  it  that  every 
man  believes  every  other  to  be  an  incurable  partial- 
ist,  and  himself  an  universalist  ?  I  talked  yesterday 
with  a  pair  of  philosophers:  I  endeavored  to  show 
nay  good  men  that  I  love  everything  by  turns,  and 
nothing  long  ;  that  I  loved  the  centre,  but  doated  on 
the  superficies ;  that  I  loved  man,  if  men  seemed  to 
me  mice  and  rats ;  that  I  revered  saints,  but  woke 
up  glad  that  the  old  pagan  world  stood  its  ground, 
and  died  hard ;  that  I  was  glad  of  men  of  every  gift 
and  nobility,  but  would  not  live  in  their  arms.  Could 


0 


ESSAY  VIII. 

:hey  but  once  understand,  that  I  loved  to  know  that 
[they  existed,  and  heartily  wished  them  Godspeed, 

ret,  out  of  my  poverty  of  life  and  thought,  had  no 
'word  or  welcome  for  them  when  they  came  to  see 
me,  and  could  well  consent  to  their  living  in  Oregon, 
for  any  claim  I  felt  on  them,  it  would  be  a  great  sat 
iation. 


NEW  ENGLAND  EEFORMERS. 


(245) 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS. 


A  LECTURE  BEAD   BEFORE  THE  SOCIETY  IN  AMORt 
HALL,   ON   SUNDAY,    3   MARCH,    1844. 

WHOEVER  has  had  opportunity  of  acquaintance 
with  society  in  New  England,  during  the  last  twen 
ty-five  years,  with  those  middle  and  with  those  lead 
ing  sections  that  may  constitute  any  just  representa 
tion  of  the  character  and  aim  of  the  community,  will 
have  been  struck  with  the  great  activity  of  thought 
and  experimenting.  His  attention  must  be  com 
manded  by  the  signs  that  the  Church,  or  religious 
party,  is  falling  from  the  church  nominal,  and  is  ap 
pearing  in  temperance  and  non-resistance  societies, 
in  movements  of  abolitionists  and  of  socialists,  and 
in  very  significant  assemblies,  called  Sabbath  and 
Bible  Conventions, — composed  of  ultraists,  of  seek 
ers,  of  all  the  soul  of  the  soldiery  of  dissent,  and 
meeting  to  call  in  question  the  authority  of  the  Sab 
bath,  of  the  priesthood,  and  of  the  church.  In  these 
movements,  nothing  was  more  remarkable  than  thd 


248        NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS. 


nerves.  The  spirit  of 
protest  and  of  detachment,  drove  the  members  of 
these  Conventions  to  bear  testimony  against  the 
church,  and  immediately  afterward,  to  declare  their 
discontent  with  these  Conventions,  their  independ 
ence  of  their  colleagues,  and  their  impatience  of  the 
methods  whereby  they  were  working.  They  defied 
each  other,  like  a  congress  of  kings,  each  of  whom 
had  a  realm  to  rule,  and  a  way  of  his  own  that  made 
concert  unprofitable.  (What  a  fertility  of  projects 
for  the  salvation  of  the  world  f)  One  apostle  thought 
all  men  should  go  to  farming  ;  and  another,  that  no 
man  should  buy  or  sell  :  that  the  use  of  money  was 
the  cardinal  evil  ;  another,  that  the  mischief  was  in 
our  diet,  that  we  eat  and  drink  damnation.  These 
made  unleavened  bread,  and  were  foes  to  the  death 
to  fermentation.  It  was  in  vain  urged  by  the  house 
wife,  that  God  made  yeast,  as  well  as  dough,  and 
loves  fermentation  just  as  dearly  as  he  loves  vegeta 
tion  ;  that  fermentation  develops  the  saccharine  ele 
ment  in  the  grain,  and  makes  it  more  palatable  and 
more  digestible.  No  ;  they  wish  the  pure  wheat,  and 
will  die  but  it  shall  not  ferment.  Stop,  dear  nature, 
these  incessant  advances  of  thine  ;  let  us  scotch  these 
ever-rolling  wheels  !  Others  attacked  the  system  of 
agriculture,  the  use  of  animal  manures  in  farming; 


ENGLAND   BEFORMERS.  249 

and  the  tyranny  of  man  over  brute  nature  ;  these 
abuses  polluted  his  food.  The  ox  must  be  taken 
from  the  plough,  and  the  horse  from  the  cart,  the 
hundred  acres  of  the  farm  must  be  spaded,  and  the 
man  must  walk  wherever  boats  and  locomotives  will 
not  carry  him.  Even  the  insect  world  was  to  be  de 
fended, — that  had  been  too  long  neglected,  and  a  so 
ciety  for  the  protection  of  ground-worms,  slugs,  and 
mosquitos  was  to  be  incorporated  without  delay. 
With  these  appeared  the  adepts  of  homoepathy,  of 
hydropathy,  of  mesmerism,  of  phrenology,  and  their 
wonderful  theories  of  the  Christian  miracles  !  Others 
assailed  particular  vocations,  as  that  of  the  lawyer, 
that  of  the  merchant,  of  the  manufacturer,  of  the 
clergyman,  of  the  scholar.  Others  attacked  the  in 
stitution  of  marriage,  as  the  fountain  of  social  evils. 
Others  devoted  themselves  to  the  worrying  of 
churches  and  meetings  for  public  worship  ;  and  the 
fertile  forms  of  antinomianism  among  the  elder  puri 
tans,  seemed  to  have  their  match  in  the  plenty  of  the 
new  harvest  of  reform. 

With  this  din  of  opinion  and  debate,  there  was  a 
keener  scrutiny  ^oTlTTstftuTTons  and  domestic  life  than 
any  we  had  known,  there  was  sincere  protesting 
against  existing  evils,  and  there  were  changes  of  em 
ployment  dictated  by  conscience.  No  doubt,  there 


250        NEW  ENGLAND  BEFOEMBBS. 

was  plentiful  vaporing,  and  cases  of  backsliding 
might  occur.  But  in  each  of  these  movements 
emerged  a  good  result,  a  tendency  to  the  adoption 
of  simpler  methods,  and  an  assertion  of  the  suffi 
ciency  of  the  private  man.  Thus  it  was  directly  in 
the  spirit  and  genius  of  the  age,  what  happened  in 
one  instance,  when  a  church  censured  and  threatened 
to  excommunicate  one  of  its  members,  on  account  of 
the  somewhat  hostile  part  to  the  church,  which  his 
conscience  led  him  to  take  in  the  anti-slavery  busi 
ness  ;  the  threatened  individual  immediately  excom 
municated  the.  church  in  a  public  and  formal  process. 
This  has  been  several  times  repeated  :  it  .was  excel 
lent  when  it  was  done  the  first  time,  but,  of  course, 
loses  all  value  when  it  is  copied.  (Every  project  in 
the  history  of  reform,  no  matter  how  violent  and 
surprising,  is  good,  when  it  is  the  dictate  of  a  man's 
genius  and  constitution,  but  very  dull  and  suspicious 
*  when  adopted  from  another)  It  is  right  and  beauti 
ful  in  any  man  to  say,  *  I  will  take  this  coat,  or  this 
book,  or  this  measure  of  corn  of  yours/ — in  whom  we 
fsee  the  act  to  be  original,  and  to  flow  from  the  whole 
spirit  and  faith  of  him ;  for  then  that  taking  will 
have  a  giving  as  free  and  divine:  but  we  are  very 
easily  disposed  to  resist  the  same  generosity  of  speech, 
when  we  miss  originality  and  truth  to  character  in  it 


NEW  ENGLAND  BEFORMEES.        261 

There-was  in  all  the  practical  activities  of  New 
England,  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  a  gradual 
withdrawal  of  tender  consciences  from  the  social  or 
ganizations.     There    is  observable  throughout,  the 
contest  between  mechanical  and  spiritual  methods,^ 
but  with  a  steady  tendency  of  the  thoughtful  and/ 
virtuous  to  a  deeper  belief  and  reliance  on  spiritual/ 
facts. 

In^  politics,  for  example,  it  is  easy-Ao^££Ltha  prog- 
ress  of  dissent.  The  country  is  full  of  rebellion ; 
the  country  is  full  of  kings.  Hands  off !  let  there 
be  no  control  and  no  interference  in  the  administra 
tion  of  the  affairs  of  this  kingdom  of  me.  Hence  the 
growth  of  the  doctrine  and  the  party  of  Free  Trade, 
and  the  willingness  to  try  that  experiment,  in  the  face 
of  what  appear  incontestable  facts.  I  confess,  the 
motto  of  the  Globe  newspaper  is  so  attractive  to  me, 
that  I  can  seldom  find  much  appetite  to  read  what  is 
below  in  its  columns,  "  The  world  is  governed  too 
much."  So  the  country  is  frequently  affording  soli 
tary  examples  of  resistance  to  the  government,  soli 
tary  nullifiers,  who  throw  themselves  on  their 
reserved  rights;  nay,  who  have  reserved  all  their 
rights ;  who  reply  to  the  assessor,  and  to  the  clerk  of 
court,  that  they  do  not  know  the  State  ;  and  embar 
rass  the  courts  of  law,  by  non-juring,  and  the  com* 


252  NEW  ENGLAND   REFORMERS. 

mauder-in- chief  of  the  militia,  by  non-resistance. 
The  same  disposition  to  scrutiny  and  dissent  ap 
peared  in  civil,  festive,  neighborly,  and  domestic 
society.  A  restless,  prying,  conscientious  criticism 
broke  out  in  unexpected  quarters.  Who  gave  me 
the  money  with  which  I  bought  my  coat?  Why 
should  professional  labor  and  that  of  the  counting- 
house  be  paid  so  disproportionately  to  the  labor  of 
the  porter,  and  wood-sawyer  ?  /This  whole  business 
of  Trade  gives  me  to  pause  and  think,  as  it  consti 
tutes  false  relations  between  men);  inasmuch  as  I  am 
prone  to  count  myself  relieved  of  any  responsibility 
}  to  behave  well  and  nobly  to  that  person  whom  I  pay 
with  money,  whereas  if  I  had  not  that  commodity,  I 
should  be  put  on  my  good  behavior  in  all  companies, 
and  man  would  be  a  benefactor  to  man,  as  being  him 
self  his  only  certificate  that  he  had  a  right  to  those 
aids  and  services  which  each  asked  of  the  other. 
fAm  I  not  too  protected  a  person  ?  is  there  not  a  wide 
[disparity  between  the  lot  of  me  and  the  lot  of  thee,  my 
Vpoor  brother,  my  poor  sister  ?  .Am  I  not  defrauded 
of  my  best  culture  in  the  loss  of  those  gymnastics 
which  manual  labor  and  the  emergencies  of  poverty 
constitute?^  find  nothing  healthful  or  exalting  in 
the  smooth  conventions  of  society ;  I  do  not  like  the 
close  air  of  saloons.  I  begin  to  suspect  myself  to  be 


NEW  ENGLAND   REFORMERS.  253 

a  prisoner,  though  treated  with  all  this  courtesy  and 
luxury.     I  pay  a  destructive  tax  in  my  conformity. 

The  same  insatiable  criticism  may  be  traced  in  the 
efforts  for  the  reform  of  Education.  /The  popular) 
education  has  been  taxed  with  a  want  of  truth  andS 
nature./  It  was  complained  that  an  education  tcx 
things  was  not  given.  We  are  students  of  words  : 
we  are  shut  up  in  schools,  and  colleges,  and  recita 
tion-rooms,  for  ten  or  fifteen  years,  and  come  out  at 
last  with  a  bag  of  wind,  a  memory  of  words,  and  do 
not  know  a  thing.  We  cannot  use  our  hands,  or  our 
legs,  or  our  eyes,  or  our  arms.  We  do  not  known  an 
edible  root  in  the  woods,  we  cannot  tell  our  course 
by  the  stars,  nor  the  hour  of  the  day  by  the  sun.  It 
is  well  if  we  can  swim  and  skate.  We  are  afraid  of 
a  horse,  of  a  cow,  of  a  dog,  of  a  snake,  of  a  spider. 
The  Roman  rule  was,  to  teach  a  boy  nothing  that  he 
could  not  learn  standing.  The  old  English  rule 
was,  '  All  summer  in  the  field,  and  all  winter  in  the 
study.'  And  it  seems  as  if  a  man  should  learn  to 
plant,  or  to  fish,  or  to  hunt,  that  he  might  secure  his 
subsistence  at  all  events,  and  not  be  painful  to  his 
friends  and  fellow  men.  The  lessons  of  science 
should  be  experimental  also.  rThe  sight  of  the  planet 
through  a  telescope,  is  worth  all  the  course  on  astron 
omy  :  the  shock  of  the  electric  spark  in  the  elbow, 


254  NEW   ENGLAND   KEFORMERS. 

out-values  all  the  theories  ;  the  taste  of  the  nitrous 
oxide,  the  firing  of  an  artificial  volcano,  are  better 
than  volumes  of  chemistry. 

One  of  the  traits  of  the  new  spirit,  is  the  inquisi 
tion  it  fixed  on  our  scholastic  devotion  to  the  dead 
languages.  (  The  ancient  languages,  with  great 
beauty  of  structure,  contain  wonderful  remains  of 
genius,  which  draw,  and  always  will  draw,  certain 
likeminded  men, — Greek  men,  and  Roman  men,  in 
all  countries,  to  their  study  ( but  by  a  wonderful 
drowsiness  of  usage,  they  had  exacted  the  study  of 
all  me^  Once  (say  two  centuries  ago),  Latin  and 
Greek  had  a  strict  relation  to  all  the  science  and  cul 
ture  there  was  in  Europe,  and  the  Mathematics  had 
a  momentary  importance  at  some  era  of  activity  in 
physical  science.  These  things  became  stereotyped 
as  education,  as  the  manner  of  men  is.  But  the  Good 
Spirit  never  cared  for  the  colleges,  and  though  all 
men  and  boys  were  now  drilled  in  Latin,  Greek,  and 
Mathematics,  it  had  quite  left  these  shells  high  and 
dry  on  the  beach,  and  was  now  creating  and  feeding 
other  matters  at  other  ends  of  the  world.  But  in  a 
hundred  high  school  and  colleges,  this  warfare  against 
common  sense  still  goes  on.  Four,  or  six,  or  ten 
years,  the  pupil  is  parsing  Greek  and  Latin,  and 
goon  as  he  leaves  the  University,  as  it  is  ludicrously: 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.  255 

calledjjie  shuts  those  books  for  the  last  time.  Some 
thousands  of  young  men  are  graduated  at  our 
colleges  in  this  country  every  year,  and  the  persona 
who,  at  forty  years,  still  read  Greek,  can  all  be 
counted  on  your  hand.  I  never  met  with  ten.  Four 
wr  five  persons  I  have  seen  who  read  Plato. 

But  is  not  this  absurd,  that  the  whole  liberal  tal 
ent   of  this  country  should  be  directed  in  its  best 
yea^s  on  studies  which  lead  to  nothing?     What  was 
the-~Jtoasequence  ?     Some  intelligent  person  said  or 
thought :     '  Is  that  Greek  and   Latin  some  spell  to 
conjure    with,   and   not   words   of   reason?     If  the 
physician,  the  lawyer,  the  divine,  never  use  it  to 
come  at  ^heir  ends,  I  need  never  learn  it  to  come  at 
mine.    Conjuring  is  gone  out  of  fashion,  and  I  will 
omit  this  conjugating,  and  go  straight  to  affairs.'    So 
they  jumped  the  Greek  and  Latin,  and  read   law,  j 
medicine,  or  aermons,  without  it.     To  the  astonish-  / 
ment  of  all,  the  self-made  men  took  even  ground  at  \  X 
once  with  the  oldest  of  the  regular  graduates,  and  in  /  v 
a  few  months  ihe  most  conservative  circles  of  Boston  {    Y 
and   New  York  had  quite  forgotten  who  of  their 
gownsmen  was  college-bred,  and  who  was  not. 

One  tendency  appears  alike  in  the  philosophical 
speculation,  and  in  the  rudest  democratical  move 
ments,  through  all  the  petulance  and  all  the  puerit 


256        NEW  ENGLAND  EEFOEMEES. 

ity,  the  wish,  namely,  to  cast  aside  the  superfluous, 
and  arrive  at  short  methods,  urged,  as  I  suppose,  by 
an  intuition  that  the  human  spirit  is  equal  to  all 
^  emergencies,  alone,  and  that  man  is  more  often  in 
jured  than  helped  by  the  means  he  uses. 
/^\  conceive  this  gradual  casting  off  of  material 
laids,  and  the  indication  of  growing  trust  in  the 
|  private,  self-supplied  powers  of  the  individual,  to  be 
\the  affirmative  principle  of  the  recent  philosophy : 
and  that  it  is  feeling  its  own  profound  truth,  and  is 
v  reaching  forward  at  this  very  hour  to  the  happiest 
conclusions.  I  readily  concede  that  in  this,  as  in 
every  period  of  intellectual  activity,  there  has  been 
noise  of  denial  and  protest ;  much  was  to  be  re 
sisted,  much  was  to  be  got  rid  of  by  those  who  were 
reared  in  the  old,  before  they  could  begin  to  affirm 
and  to  construct.  /Many  a  reformer  perishes  in  his 
removal  of  rubbish, — and  that  makes  the  offensive- 
ness  of  the  clas^  They  are  partial ;  they  are  not 
equal  to  the  work  they  pretend.  They  lose  their 
way ;  in  the  assault  on  the  kingdom  of  darkness, 
they  expend  all  their  energy  on  some  accidental  evil, 
and  lose  their  sanity  and  power  of  benefit.  It  is  oi 
little  moment  that  one  or  two,  or  twenty  errors  of 
our  social  system  be  corrected,  but  of  much  that  the 
man  be  in  his  senses. 


NEW   ENGLAND   REFORMERS.  257 

The  criticism  and  attack  on  institutions  which  we 
have  witnessed,  has  made  one  thing  plain,  thaJLfia- 
ciety  gains  nothing  whilst  a  man,  not  himself  reno 
vated,  attempts  to  renovate  things  aroundJaim :  he 
has  become  tediously  good  in  some  particular,  but 
negligent  or  narrow  in  the  rest ;-  and  hypocrisy  and 
vanity  are  often  the  disgusting  result. 

It  is  handsomer  to  remain  in  the  establishment 
better   than  the  establishment,  and  conduct  that  in^ 
the  best  manner,  than  to  make  a  sally  against  evil  by/ 
some  single  improvement,  without  supporting  it  by  j 
a  total  regeneration.     filQ  not  be  so  vain  of  your  one' 
objectioi).     Do  you  think  there  is  only  one  ?     Alas ! 
my  good  friend,  there  is  no  part  of  society  or  of  life  j 
better  than  any  other  part.     All  our  things  are  right  I  * 
and  wrong  together.     The  wave  of  evil  washes  all 
our  institutions  alike.     Do  you  complain  of  our  Mar 
riage  ?     Our  marriage  is  no  worse  than  our  educa 
tion,  our  diet,  our  trade,  our  social  customs.     Do  you\ 
complain  of  the  laws  of  Property  ?     It  is  a  pedantry^ 
to  give  such  importance  to  them.     Can  we  not 
the  game  of  life  with  these  counters,  as  well  as  witl 
those  ;  in   the  institution  of  property,  as  well  as  01 
of  it.   (Let  into  it  the  new  and  renewing  principle  of 
love,  and  property  will  be  universality) (No  one  gives V" 
the  impression  of  superiority  to  the  institution,  whicn\ 
17 


258        KEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS. 

(he  must  give  who  will  reform  it. )  It  makes  no  dif« 
ference  what  you  say :  you  must  make  me  feel  that 
you  are  aloof  from  it;  by  your  natural  and  supernat 
ural  advantages,  do  easily  see  to  the  end  of  it, — do 
see  how  man  can  do  without  it.     Now  all  men  are  on 
A     one   side.     No    man   deserves   to  be  heard  against 
J     property.     Only-Love,  only  an  Idea,  is  against  prop 
erty,  as  we  hold  it. 

f*T.  cannot  afford  to  be  irritable  and  captious,  nor  to 

vwaste  all  my  time  in  attacks.     If  I  should  go  out  of 

/church   whenever   I  hear  a  false  sentiment,  I  could 

'  (  never  stay  there  five  minutes.     But  why  come  out? 

xthe  street  is  as  false  as  the  church,  and  when  I  get  to 

my  house,  or  to  my  manners,  or  to  my  speech,  I  have 

not  got  away  from  the  lie.     When  we  see  an  eager 

assailant  of  one  of  these  wrongs,  a  special  reformer, 

we  feel  like  asking  him,  What  right  have  you,  sir,  to 

your  one   virtue  ?     Is  virtue  piecemeal  ?     This  is  a 

jewel  amidst  the  rags  of  a  beggar. 

In  another  way  the  right  will  be  vindicated.     In 

the   midst  of  abuses,  in  the  heart  of  cities,  in  the 

aisles   of  false   churches,   alike  in  one  place  and  in 

^another, — wherever,    namely,  a  just  and  heroic  soul 

/  finds  itself,  there  it  will  do  what  is  next  at  hand,  and 

*  by  the  new  quality  of  character  it  shall  put  forth,  it 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.        259 

shall   abrogate  that  old  condition,  law  or  school  in 
which  it  stands,  before  the  law  of  its  own  mind. 

If  partiality  was  one  fault  of  the  movement  party 
the  other  defect  was  their  reliance  on  Association. 
Doubts  such  as  those  I  have  intimated,  drove  many 
good  persons  to  agitate  the  questions  of  social  re 
form.  But  the  revolt  against  the  spirit  of  commerce, 
the  spirit  of  aristocracy,  and  the  inveterate  abuses  of 
cities,  did  not  appear  possible  to  individuals  :  and  to 
do  battle  against  numbers,  they  armed  themselves 
with  numbers,  and  against  concert,  they  relied  on 
new  concert. 

Following,  or  advancing  beyond  the  ideas  of  St. 
Simon,  of  Fourier,  arid  of  Owen,  three  communities 
have  already  been  formed  in  Massachusetts  on  kin 
dred  plans,  and  many  more  in  the  country  at  large. 
They  aim  to  give  every  member  a  share  in  the  man 
ual  labor,  to  give  an  equal  reward  to  labor  and  to 
talent,  and  to  unite  a  liberal  culture  with  an  educa 
tion  to  labor.  The  scheme  offers,  by  the  economies 
of  associated  labor  and  expense,  to  make  every  mem 
ber  rich,  on  the  same  amount  of  property,  that,  in 
separate  families,  would  leave  every  member  poor. 
These  new  associations  are  composed  of  men  and) 
women  of  superior  talents  and  sentiments:  yet  itf 
may  easily  be  questioned,  whether  such  a  community 


260        NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS. 

will  draw,  except  in  its  beginnings,  the  able  and  the 
good ;  whether  those  who  have  energy,  will  not  pre 
fer  their  chance  of  superiority  and  power  in  the 
world,  to  the  humble  certainties  of  the  Association ; 
whether  such  a  retreat  does  not  promise  to  become 
an  asylum  to  those  who  have  tried  and  failed,  rather 
than  a  field  to  the  strong  ;  and  whether  the  members 
will  not  necessarily  be  fractions  of  men,  because 
each  finds  that  he  cannot  enter  it,  without  some  com 
promise.  Friendship  and  association  are  very  fine 
{things,  and  a  grand  phalanx  of  the  best  of  the  human 
race,  banded  for  some  catholic  object:  yes,  excellent; 
but  remember  that  no  society  can  ever  be  so  large  as 
one  man.  He  in  his  friendship,  in  his  natural  and 
momentary  associations,  doubles  or  multiplies  him 
self;  but  in  the  hour  in  which  he  mortgages  himself 
to  two  or  ten  or  twenty,  he  dwarfs  himself  below  the 
stature  of  one. 

But  the__men_.of  less  faith  could  not  thus  believe, 
and  to  such,  concert  appears  the  sole  specific—of 
strength.  (1  have  failed,  and  you  have  failed,  but 
perhaps  together  we  shall  not  faij/  Our  housekeep 
ing  is  not  satisfactory  to  us,  but  perhaps  a  phalanx, 
a  community,  might  be.  Many  of  us  have  differed 
in  opinion,  and  we  could  find  no  man  who  could 
make  the  truth  plain,  fyit  possibly  a  college,  or  an 


/ 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS,        261 

jouftGil-  might.  I  have  not  been  able 
either  to  persuade  my  brother  or  to  prevail  on  myself, 
to  disuse  the  traffic  or  the  potation  of  brandy,  but 
perhaps  a  pledge  of  total  abstinence  might  effectually 
restrain  us.  The  candidate  my  party  votes  for  isnoiT\ 
to  be  trusted  with  a  dollar,  but  he  will  be  honest  in/ 
the  Senate,  for  we  can  bring  public  opinion  to  bear/ 
on  him.  Thus  concert  was  the  specific  in  all  cases/ 
But  concert  is  neither  better  nor  worse,  neither  more 
nor  less  potent  than  individual  force.  All  the  men 
in  the  world  cannot  make  a  statue  walk  and  speak, 
cannot  make  a  drop  of  blood,  or  a  blade  of  grass, 
any  more  than  one  man  san.  But  let  there  be  one\ 
man,  let  there  be  truth  in  two  men,  in  ten  men,  then  / 
is  concert  for  the  first  time  possible,  because  tneTbrce 
which  moves  the  world  is  a  new  quality,  and  can 
never  be  furnished  by  adding  whatever  quantities  of 
a  different  kind.  (What  is  the  use  of  the  concert  of 
the  false  and  the  disunited  ?/  There  can  be  no  con 
cert  in  two,  where  there  is  no  concert  in  one.  When 
the  individual  is  not  individual,  but  is  dual ;  when 
his  thoughts  look  one  way,  and  his  actions  another ; 
when  his  faith  is  traversed  by  his  habits ;  when  his 
will,  enlightened  by  reason,  is  warped  by  his  sense; 
when  with  one  hand  he  rows,  and  with  the  other 
backs  water,  what  oonflgrtjsan  be? 


262        NEW  ENGLAND  KEFORMBB8. 

I  do  not  wonder  at  the  interest  these  projects  in 
spire.  \The  world  is  awaking  to  the  idea  of  union 
and  .tfiese  experiments  show  what  it  is  thinking  of. 
It  is  and  will  be  magic.  Men  will  live  and  commu 
nicate,  and  plough,  and  reap,  and  govern,  as  by  ad 
ded  ethereal  power,  when  once  they  are  united ;  as 
in  a  celebrated  experiment,  by  expiration  and  respir 
ation  exactly  together,  four  persons  lift  a  heavy 
man  from  the  ground  by  the  little  finger  only,  and 
without  sense  of  weight.  But _  jhis  .union  must  be 
inward,  and  not  one  of  covenants,  and  is  to  be 
reached  by  a  reverse  of  the  methods  they  use.  •  The 
/union  is  only  perfect,  when  all  the  uniters  are  iso, 
\lated.  It  is  the  union  of  friends  who  live  in  differ 
ent  streets  or  towns.  Each  man,  if  he  attempts  to 
join  himself  to  others,  is  on  all  sides  cramped  and 
<ainivnished  of  his  proportion  ;  and  the  stricter  the 
union,  the  smaller  and  the  more  pitiful  he  is.  But 
leave  him  alone,  to  recognize  in  every  hour  and 
place  the  secret  soul,  he  will  go  up  and  down  doing 
the  works  of  a  true  member,  and,  to  the  astonish 
ment  of  all,  the  work  will  be  done  with  concert, 
though  no  man  spoke.  Government  will  be  ada 
mantine  without  any  governor.  The  union  must  be 
ideal  in  actual  individualism. 

I  pass  to  the  indication  in  some  particulars  of  that 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.        263 

faith  in  man,  which  the  heart  is  preaching  to  us  in 
these  days,  and  which  engages  the  more  regard, 
from  the  consideration,  that  the  speculations  of  one 
generation  are  the  history  of  the  next  following. 

In  alluding  just  now  to  our  Astern  of  education,  I 
spoke  of  the  deadness  of  its  details.     But  it  is  open 
to  graver    criticism  than   the  palsy  of  its  members : 
At  is  a  system  of  despair.     The  disease  with  which 
the  human  mind  now  labors,  is  want  of  faith.  Cjvfen  ^ 
do  not  believe  in  a  power  of  education.     We  do  not  / 
think   we  can   speak  to   divine  sentiments  in  man,  I 
and    we  do  not  try.     We  renounce  all  high   aims.  / 
We  believe  that  the  defects  of  so  many  perverse  and 
so  many   frivolous  people,  who  make  up  society,  are 
organic,  and   society  is  a  hospital  of  incurables.     A 
man  of  good  sense  but  of  little  faith,  whose  compas 
sion  seemed   to  lead  him  to   church  as  often  as  he 
went  there,  said  to  me ;    "  that  he  liked  to  have  con 
certs,    and   fairs,   and    churches,   and   other   public 
amusements  go  on."     I  am  afraid  the  remark  is  too 
honest,  arid  comes  from  the  same  origin  as  the  maxim 
of  the  tyrant,  "  If  you  would  rule  the  world  quietly  ,v 
you  must   keep  it   amused."     I  notice  too,  that  the  \ 
ground  on    which  eminent  public  servants  urge  the  I 
claims  of  popular  education  is  fear :  4  This  country  / 
is  filling  up  with  thousands  and  millions  of  voters, 


264        NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS. 

and  you  must  educate  them  to  keep  them  from  our 
throats.'  We  do  not  believe  that  any  education,  any 
system  of  philosophy,  any  influence  of  genius,  will 
ever  give  depth  of  insight  to  a  superficial  mind. 
Having  settled  ourselves  into  this  infidelity,  our 
skill  is  expended  to  procure  alleviations,  diversion* 
opiates.  We  adorn  the  victim  with  manual  skill, 
his  tongue  with  languages,  his  body  with  inoffensive 
and  comely  manners.  So  have  we  cunningly  hid 
the  tragedy  of  limitation  and  inner  death  we  cannot 
avert.  Is  it  strange  that  society  should  be  devoured 
by  a  secret  melancholy,  which  breaks  through  all 
its  smiles,  and  all  its  gayety  and  games  ? 

I$ut  even  one  step  farther  our  infidelity  has  gone. 
It  appears  that  some  doubt  is  felt  by  good  and  wise 
men,  whether  really  the  happiness  and  probity  of 
men  is  increased  by  the  culture  of  the  mind  in  those 
disciplines  to  which  we  give  the  name  of  education. 
Unhappily,  too,  the  doubt  comes  from  scholars,  from 
persons  who  have  tried  these  methods.  /In  their  ex 
perience,  the  scholar  was  not  raised  Ijy  the  sacred 
thoughts  amongst  which  he  dwelt,  but  used  them  to 
selfish  enda.  He  was  a  profane  person,  and  became 
a  showman,  turning  his  gifts  to  a  marketable  use 
and  not  to  his  own  sustenance  and  growth.  It  was 
found  that  the  intellect  could  be  independently  de- 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFOBMEBS.        266 

veloped,  that  is,  in  separation  from  the  man,  as  any 
single  organ "* "can"  be  invigorated,  and  the  result  was 
monstrous.  A  canine  appetite  for  knowledge  was 
generated,  which  must  still  be  fed,  but  was  never 
satisfied,  and  this  knowledge  not  being  directed  on 
action,  never  took  the  character  of  substantial,  hu 
mane  truth,  blessing  those  whom  it  entered.  It  gave) 
the  scholar  certain  powers  of  expression,  the  powen 
of  speech,  the  power  of  poetry,  of  literary  art,  buy 
it  did  not  bring  him  to  peace,  or  to  beneficence. 

When  the  literary  class  betray  a  destitution  of 
faith,  it  is  not  strange  that  society  should  be  dis 
heartened  and  sensualized  by  unbelief.  What  rem 
edy  ?  (Life  must  be  lived  on  a  higher  plane.  We 
must  go  up  to  a  higher  platform,  to  which  we  are  al 
ways  invited  to  ascend ;  there,  the  whole  aspect  of 
things  changes.  I  resist  the  skepticism  of  our  edu 
cation,  and  of  our  educated  men.  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  differences  of  opinion  and  character  in  men 
are  organic.  I  do  not  recognize,  beside  the  class  of 
the  good  and  the  wise,  a  permanent  class  of  skeptics, 
or  a  class  of  conservatives,  or  of  malignants,  or  of 
materialists.  I  do  not  believe  in  two  classes.  You 
remember  the  story  of  the  poor  woman  who  impor 
tuned  King  Philip  of  Macedon  to  grant  her  justice, 
Which  Philip  refused  :  the  woman  exclaimed,  "  I  ap- 


266  NEW  ENGLAND   REFORMERS. 

peal  " :  the  king,  astonished,  asked  to  whom  she  ap« 
pealed :  the  woman  replied,  "  from  Philip  drunk  to 
Philip  sober."  The  text  will  suit  me  very  well.  I 
/believe  not  in  two  classes  of  men,  but  in  man  in  two 
Woods,  in  Philip  drunk  and  Philip  sober.  I  think, 
according  to  the  good-hearted  word  of  Plato,  ^Un 
willingly  the  soul  is  deprived  of  truth."  Iron  con 
servative,  miser,  or  thief,  no  man  is,  but  by  a  sup- 
posed  necessity,  which  he  tolerates  by  shortness  or 
torpidity  of  sight,  xhe  soul  lets  no  man  go  without A 
some  visitations  and  holy-days  of  a  diviner  presence.  / 
It  would  be  easy  to  show,  by  a  narrow  scanning  of 
any  man's  biography,  that  we  are  not  so  wedded  to 
O'Jr  paltry  performances  of  every  kind,  but  that 
every  man  has  at  intervals  the  grace  to  scorn  his 
performances,  in  comparing  them  with  his  belief  of 
what  he  should  do,  that  he  puts  himself  on  the  side 
of  his  enemies,  listening  gladly  to  what  they  say  of 
him,  and  accusing  himself  of  the  same  things. 

/What  is  it  men  love  in  Genius,  but  its  infinite 
hoj>e,  which  degrades  all  it  has  done  ?)  Genius 
counts  all  its  miracles  ^/oor  and  short.  Its  own  idea 
it  never  executed.  The  Iliad,  the  Hamlet,  the  Doric 
column,  the  Rorear  arch,  the  Gothic  minster,  the 
German  anthem,  when  they  are  ended,  the  master 
easts  behind  him.  How  sinks  the  song  in  the  waves 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.        267 

of  melody  which  the  universe  pours  over  his  soul ! 
Before  that  gracious  Infinite,  out  of  which  he  drew 
these  few  strokes,  how  mean  they  look,  though  the 
praises  of  the   world  attend  them.     From   the  tri 
umphs  of  his  art,  he  turns  with  desire  to  this  greater 
defeat.     Let   those    admire   who   will.     With   silent, 
joy  he  sees  himself  to   be  capable  of  a  beauty  that/ 
eclipses  all  which  his    hands  have  done,  all  which 
human  hands  have  ever  done. 

Well,  we  are  all  the  children  of  genius,  the  chil 
dren  of  virtue, — and  feel  their  inspirations  in  ou^ 
happier  hours.  Is  not  every  man  sometimes  a  radi 
cal  in  politics?  Men  are  conservatives  when  they 
are  least  vigorous,  or  when  they  are  most  luxurious. 
They  are  conservatives  after  dinner,  or  before  taking 
their  rest ;  when  they  are  sick,  or  aged :  in  the 
morning,  or  when  their  intellect  or  their  conscience 
have  been  aroused,  when  they  hear  music,  or  when 
they  read  poetry,  tl^v_are_radicals.  In  the  circle  of 
the  rankest  tories  that  could  be  collected  in  England, 
Old  or  New,  let  a  powerful  and  stimulating  intellect, 
a  man  of  great  heart  and  mind,  act  on  them,  and 
very  quickly  these  frozen  conservators  will  yield  to 
the  friendly  influence,  these  hopeless  will  begin  to 
hope,  these  haters  will  begin  to  love,  these  immova 
ble  statues  will  begin  to  spin  and  revolve.  I  cannot 


268  NEW   ENGLAND 

help  recalling  the  fine  anecdote  which  Wharton  re« 
lates  of  Bishop  Berkeley,  when  he  was  preparing  to 
leave  England,  with  his  plan  of  planting  the  gospel 
among  the  American  savages.  "  Lord  Bathurst  told 
me,  that  the  members  of  the  Scriblerus  club,  being 
met  at  his  house  at  dinner,  they  agreed  to  rally 
Berkeley,  who  was  also  his  guest,  on  his  scheme  at 
Bermudas.  Berkeley,  having  listened  to  the  many 
lively  things  they  had  to  say,  begged  to  be  heard  in 
his  turn,  and  displayed  his  plan  with  such  an  aston 
ishing  and  animating  force  of  eloquence  and  enthu 
siasm,  that  they  were  struck  dumb,  and,  after  some 
pause,  rose  up  all  together  with  earnestness,  exclaim 
ing,  4  Let  us  set  out  with  him  immediately.' '  Men 
in  all  ways  are  better  than  they  seem.  They  like  / 
flattery  for  the  moment,  but  they  know  the  truth  fory 
their  own.  It  is  a  foolish  cowardice  which  keeps  u^ 
from  trusting  them,  and  speaking  to  them  rude  truth.) 
They  resent  your  honesty  for  an  instant,  they  will 
thank  you  for  it  always.  What  is  it  we  heartly  wish 
of  each  other  ?  Is  it  to  be  pleased  and  flattered  ? 
No,  but  to  be  convicted  and  exposed,  to  be  shamed 
out  of  our  nonsense  of  all  kinds,  and  made  men  of, 
instead  of  ghosts  and  phantoms.  We  are  weary,  of 
gliding  ghostlike  through  the  world,  which  is  itself 
so  slight ^and  unreal.  We  crave  a  sense  of  reality^ 


NEW    ENGLAND    REFORMERS.  209 

though  it  come  jri  strokes  of  pain.  I  explain  so,  — by 
this  manlike  love  of  truth,  — those  excesses  and  errors\ 
into  which  souls  of  great  vigor,  but  not  equal  insightx 
often  fall.  They  feel  the  poverty  at  the  bottom  of 
all  the  seeming  affluence  of  the  world.  They  know 
the  speed  with  which  they  come  straight  through  thej 
thin  masquerade,  and  conceive  a  disgust  at  the  indi«( 
gence  of  nature  :  Rousseau,  Mirabeau,  Charles  Fox,/ 
Napoleon,  Byron, — and  I  could  easily  add  riames| 
nearer  home,  of  raging  riders,  who  drive  their  steeds 
so  hard,  in  the  violence  of  living  to  forget  its  illu 
sion  :  they  would  know  the  worst,  and  tread  the 
floors  of  hell.  The  heroes  of  ancient  and  modern 
fame,  Cimon,  Themistocles,  Alcibiades,  Alexander, 
Caesar,  have  treated  life  and  fortune  as  a  game  to  be 
well  and  skilfully  played,  but  the  stake  not  to  be  so 
valued,  but  that  any  time,  it  could  be  held  as  a  trifle 
light  as  air,  and  thrown  up.  Csesar,  just  before  the 
battle  of  Pharsalia,  discourses  with  the  Egyptian 
priest,  concerning  the  fountains  of  the  Nile,  and 
offers  to  quit  the  army,  the  empire,  and  Cleopatra,  if 
he  will  show  him  those  mysterious  sources. 

The  same  magnanimity  shows  itself  in  our  sociaK 
relations,  in  the  preference,  namely,  which  each  man/ 
gives  to  the  society  of  superiors  over  that  of  his\ 
equals*  All  that  a  man  has,  will  he  give  for  right/ 


270  NEW   ENGLAND    REFORMERS. 

relations  with  his  mates.  All  that  he  has,  will  he 
give  for  an  erect  demeanor  in  every  company  and  on 
each  occasion.  He  aims  at  such  things  as  his  neigh 
bors  prize,  and  gives  his  day  sand  nights,  his  talents 
and  his  heart,  to  strike  a  good  stroke,  to  acquit  him 
self  in  all  men's  sight  as  a  man.  The  consideration 
of  an  eminent  citizen,  of  a  noted  merchant,  of  a 
man  of  mark  in  his  profession;  naval  and  military 
honor,  a  general's  commission,  a  marshal's  baton, 
a  ducal  coronet,  the  laurel  of  poets,  and  any 
how  procured,  the  acknowledgment  of  eminent  merit 
have  this  lustre  for  each  candidate,  that  they  enable 
him  to  walk  erect  and  unashamed,  in  the  presence  of 
some  persons,  before  whom  he  felt  himself  inferior. 
Having  raised  himself  to  this  rank,  having  estab 
lished  his  equality  with  class  after  class,  of  those 
with  whom  he  would  live  well,  he  still  finds  certain 
others,  before  whom  he  cannot  possess  himself,  be 
cause  they  have  somewhat  fairer,  somewhat  grander, 
somewhat  purer,  which  extorts  homage  of  him.  Is 

9  his  ambition  pure?  then,  will  his  laurels  and  his 
possessions  seem  worthless :  instead  of  avoiding 
these  men  who  make  his  fine  gold  dim,  he  will  cast 
all  behind  him,  and  seek  their  society  only,  woo  and 
embrace  this  his  humiliation  and  mortification,  until 
he  shall  know  why  his  eye  sinks,  his  voice  is  husky, 


NEW   ENGLAND   REFORMERS.  271 

and  his  brilliant  talents  are  paralyzed  in  this  pres 
ence.  He  is  sure  that  the  soul  which  gives  the  lie  to 
all  things,  will  tell  none.  His  constitution  will  not 
mislead  him.  If  it  cannot  carry  itself  as  it  ought, 
high  and  unmatchable  in  the  presence  of  any  man, 
if  the  secret  oracles  whose  whisper  makes  the  sweet 
ness  and  dignity  of  his  life,  do  here  withdraw  and 
accompany  him  no  longer,  it  is  time  to  under 
value  what  he  has  valued,  to  dispossess  himself  of 
what  he  has  acquired,  and  with  Caesar  to  take  in  his 
hand  the  army,  the  empire,  and  Cleopatra,  and  say, 
'All  these  will  I  relinquish,  if  you  will  show  me  the 
fountains  of  the  Nile. '  (t)ear  to  us  are  those  who  love 
us,  the  swift  moments  we  spend  with  them  are  at 
compensation  for  a  great  deal  of  misery  ;  they  en 
large  our  life ') — but  dearer  are  those  who  reject  us  as 
unworthy,  for  they  add  another  life:  they  build  a 
heaven  before  us,  whereof  we  had  not  dreamed,  and 
thereby  supply  to  us  new  powers  out  of  the  recesses 
of  the  spirit,  and  urge  us  to  new  and  unattempted 
performances. 

Asjevery  man  at  heart  wishes  the  best  and  not  in- 
ferlor  society ,  wishes  to  be  convicted  of  his  error, 
and  to  come  to  himself,  so  he  wishes  that  the 
same  healing  should  not  stop  in  his  thought,  but 
should  penetrate  his  will  or  active  power.  The 


272        NEW  ENGLAND  KEFORMER8. 

•elfishinau  suffers  more  from  his  selfishness^ 
than  he  from  whom  that  selfishness  withholds  some 
important  benefit.  What  he  most  wishes  is  to  be 
lifted  to  some  higher  platform,  that  he  may  see  be 
yond  his  present  fear  the  transalpine  good,  so  that 
his  fear,  his  coldness,  his  custom  may  be  broken  up 
like  fragments  of  ice,  melted  and  carried  away  in 
the  great  stream  of  good  will.  Do  you  ask  my  aid  ? 
I  also  wish  to  be  a  benefactor.  ^1  wish  more  to  be  a 
benefactor  and  servant,  than  you  wish  to  be  served 
by  me^)  and  surely  the  greatest  good  fortune  that 
could  befall  me,  is  precisely  to  be  so  moved  by  you 
that  I  should  say,  4  Take  me  and  all  mine,  and  use 
me  and  mine  freely  to  your  ends  ' !  for,  I  could  not 
say  it,  otherwise  than  because  a  great  enlargement 
had  come  to  my  heart  and  mind,  which  made  me 
superior  to  my  fortunes.  Here  we  are  paralyzed  with 
fear ;  we  hold  on  to  our  little  properties,  house  and 
land,  office  and  money,  for  the  bread  which  they  have 
in  our  experience  yielded  us,  although  we  confess, 
that  our  being  does  not  flow  through  them.  We 
desire  to  be  made  great,  we  desire  to  be  touched  with 
that  fire  which  shall  command  this  ice  to  stream,  and 
make  our  existence  a  benefit.  If  therefore  we  start 
objections  to  your  project,  O  friend  of  the  slave,  or 
friend  of  the  poor,  or  of  the  race,  understand  well, 


NEW   ENGLAND   REFORMERS.  273 

that  it  is  because  we  wish  to  drive  you  to  drive  us 
into  your  measures.  We  wish  to  hear  ourselves  con 
futed.  We  are  haunted  with  a  belief  that  you  have 
a  secret,  which  it  would  highliest  advantage  us 
learn,  and  we  would  force  you  to  impart  it  to 
though  it  should  bring  us  to  prison,  or  to  worse 
extremity. 

QJothing  shall  warp  me  from  the  belief,  that  every 
man  is  a  lover  of  truth.  There  is  no  pure  lie,  no 
pure  malignity  in  nature.}  (The  entertainment  of  the 
proposition  of  depravity  is  the  last  profligacy  and 
profanation^  There  is  no  skepticism,  no  atheism  but 
that.  Could  it  be  received  into  common  belief,  sui 
cide  would  unpeople  the  planet.  It  has  had  a  name 
to  live  in  some  dogmatic  theology,  but  each  man's 
innocence  and  his  real  liking  of  his  neighbor,  hava 
kept  it  a  dead  letter.  I  remember  standing  at  thf 
polls  one  day,  when  the  anger  of  the  political  con< 
test  gave  a  certain  grim  ness  to  the  faces  of  the  in 
dependent  electors,  and  a  good  man  at  my  side  look 
ing  on  the  people,  remarked,  "  I  am  satisfied  that  the 
largest  part  of  these  men,  on  either  side,  mean  to 
vote  right."  I  suppose,  considerate  observers  look 
ing  at  the  masses  of  men,  in  their  blameless,  and  in 
their  equivocal  actions,  will  assent,  that  in  spite  of 
selfishness  and  frivolity,  the  general  purpose  in  the 
18 


274        NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS. 


Teat  number  of  persons  is  fidelity.     The  reason  why 
any  one  refuses  his  assent  to  your  opinion,  or  his  aid 
your  benevolent  design,  is  in  you):  he  refuses  to 
ccept  you  as  a  bringer  of  truth,  because,  though 
^       you  think  you  have  it,  he  feels  that  you  have  it  not 
You  have  not  given  him  the  authentic  sign. 

If  it  were  worth  while  to  run  into  details  this  gen* 
eral  doctrine  of  the  latent  but  ever  soliciting  Spirit, 
it  would  be  easy  to  adduce  illustration  in  particulars 
of  a  man's  equality  to  the  church,  of  his  equality  to 
the  state,  and  of  his  equality  to  every  other  man.  It 
is  yet  in  all  men's  memory,  that,  a  few  years  ago,  the 
liberal  churches  complained,  that  the  Calvinistio 
church  denied  to  them  the  name  of  Christian.  I 
think  (  the  complaint  was  confession :  a  religious 
churcliVould  not  complainl  A  religious  man  like 
Behmen,  Fox,  or  Swedenborg,  is  not  irritated  by 
wanting  the  sanction  of  the  church,  but  the  church 
feels  the  accusation  of  his  presence  and  belief. 

It  only  needs,  that  a  just  man  should  walk  in  our 
/streets,  to  make  it  appear  how  pitiful  and  inartificial 
(      a  contrivance  is  our  legislation.     The  man  whose 
\  part  is  taken,  and  who  does  not  wait  for  society  in 
I  anything,  has  a  power  which  society  cannot  choose 
\but  feel.     The  familiar  experiment,  called  the  hy 
drostatic  paradox,  in  which  a  capillary  column  of 


NEW  ENGLAND   REFORMERS.  275 

water  balances  the  ocean,  is  a  symbol  of  the  relation 
of  one  man  to  the  whole  family  of  men.  The  wise 
Dandini,  on  hearing  the  lives  of  Socrates,  Pytha 
goras,  and  Diogenes  read,  "judged  them  to  be  great 
men  every  way,  excepting,  that  they  were  too  much 
subjected  to  the  reverence  of  the  laws,  which  to 
second  and  authorize,  true  virtue  must  abate  very 
much  of  its  original  vigor." 

And  as  a  man  is  equal  to  the  church,  and  equal  to 
the_^tate,  so  he  is  equal  to  every  other  man.  The 
(^disparities  of  power  in  men  are  superficial ;  and  all 
frank  and  searching  conversation,  in  which  a  man^ 
lays  himself  open  to  his  brother,  apprizes  each  of 
their  radical  unityy  When  two  persons  sit  and  con 
verse  in  a  thoroughly  good  understanding,  the  remark 
is  sure  to  be  made,  See  how  we  have  disputed  about 
words  I  Let  a  clear,  apprehensive  mind,  such  as 
every  man  knows  among  his  friends,  converse  with 
the  most  commanding  poetic  genius,  I  think,  it  would 
appear  that  there  was  no  inequality  such  as  men 
fancy  between  them;  that  a  perfect  understanding,  a 
like  receiving,  a  like  perceiving,  abolished  differ 
ences,  and  the  poet  would  confess,  that  his  creative 
imagination  gave  him  no  deep  advantage,  but  only 
the  superficial  one,  that  he  could  express  himself,  and 
the  other  could  aot ;  that  his  advantage  was  a  knack, 


276  NEW   ENGLAND   REFORMERS. 

which  might  impose  on  indolent  men,  but  could  not 
impose  on  lovers  of  truth ;  for  they  know  the  tax  of 
talent,  or,  what  a  price  of  greatness  the  power  of  ex 
pression  too  often  pays.  I  believe  it  is  the  convic 
tion  of  the  purest  men,  that  the  net  amount  of  man 
and  man  does  not  much  vary.  Each  is  incomparably 
superior  to  his  companion  in  some  faculty.  His  want 
of  skill  in  other  directions  has  added  to  his  fitness 
for  his  own  work.  Each  seems  to  have  some  com 
pensation  yielded  to  him  by  his  infirmity,  and  every 
hindrance  operates  as  a  concentration  of  his  force. 

These  and  the  like  experiences  intimate,  that  man 
stands  in  strict  connexion  with  a  higher  fact  never 
yet  manifested.  There  is  power  over  and  behind  us, 
and  we  are  the  channels  of  its  communications.  We 
<£eek  to  say  thus  and  so,  and  over  our  head  some 
spirit  sits,  which  contradicts  what  we  sayj  We 
would  persuade  our  fellow  to  this  or  that;  another 
self  within  our  eyes  dissuades  him.  That  which  we 
keep  back,  this  reveals.  In  vain  we  compose  our 
faces  and  our  words ;  it  holds  uncontrollable  commu 
nication  with  the  enemy,  and  he  answers  civilly  to  us, 
but  believes  the  spirit.  We  exclaim,  'There's  a 
traitor  in  the  house!'  but  at  last  it  appears  that  he 
is  the  true  man,  and  I  am  the  traitor.  This  open 
channel io-ilia.highest  life  is  the  first  and  last  reality 


STEW  ENGLAND   REFORMERS.  277 

go  subtle,  so  quiet,  yet  so  tenacious,  that  although  1 
have  never  expressed  the  truth,  and  although  I  haveT^^ 
never  heard  the  expression  of  it  from  any  other,  1     J 
'know  that  the  whole  truth  is  here  for  me.     What  if^v 
I  cannot  answer  your  questions?     I  am   not  pained       \ 
that  I  cannot  frame  a  reply  to  the  question,  What  is        \ 
the  operation  we  call  Providence?     There  lies  the 
unspoken  thing,  present,  omnipresent,     Every  time 
we  converse,  we  seek  to  translate  it  into  speech,  but  )fj 
whether  we  hit,  or  whether  we   miss,  we  have  the  ) 
fact.     Every   discourse  is  an  approximate  answer:' 
but  it  is  of  small  consequence,  that  we  do  not  get  it 
into  verbs  and  nouns,  whilst  it  abides  for  contempla 
tion  forever. 

/If  the  auguries  of  the  prophesying  heart  shall 
mUke  themselves  good  in  time,  the  man  who  shall  be  / 
born,  whose  advent  men  and  events  prepare  and; 
foreshow,  is  one  who  shall  enjoy  his  connexion  with; 
a  higher  life,  with  the  man  within  manj  shall  destroy 
distrust  by  his  trust,  shall  use  his  native  but  forgot 
ten  methods,  shall  not  take  counsel  of  flesh  and 
blood,  but  shall  rely  on  the  Law  alive  and  beautiful, 
which  works  over  our  heads  and  under  our  feet.  Pit- 
ilessj_it  avails  itself  of  our  success,  when  we  obey  it, 
and  of  our  ruin,  when  we  contravene  it.  Men  are 
all  secret  believers  in  it,  else,  the  word  justice  would 


278  NEW  ENGLAND    REFORMERS. 

Lave  no  meaning :  they  believe  that  the  best  is  the 
true ;  thaT right  is  clone  at  last ;  or  chaos  would  come. 
It  rewards  actions  after  their  nature,  and  not  after 
the  design  of  the  agent.  'Work,'  it  saith  to  man, 
'in  every  hour,  paid  or  unpaid,  see  only  that  thou 
work,  and  thou  canst  not  escape  the  reward :  whether 
thy  work  be  fine  or  coarse,  planting  corn,  or  writing 
epics,  so  only  it  be  honest  work,  done  to  thine  own 
approbation,  it  shall  earn  a  reward  to  the  senses  as 
well  as  to  the  thought :  no  matter,  how  often  de 
feated,  you  are  born  to  victory.  The  reward  of  a 
thing  well  done,  is  to  have  done  it. ' 

(As  soon  as  a  man  is  wonted  to  look  beyond  sur 
faces,  and  to  see  how  this  high  will  prevails  without 
an  exception  or  an  interval,  he  settles  himself  into 
serenitw  He  can  already  rely  on  the  laws  of  grav 
ity,  that  every  stone  will  fall  where  it  is  due ;  the 
good  globe  is  faithful,  and  carries  us  securely  through 
the  celestial  spaces,  anxious  or  resigned :  we  need 
not  interfere  to  help  it  on,  and  he  will  learn, 
one  day,  the  mild  lesson  they  teach,  that  our  own  orbit 
is  all  our  task,  and  we  need  not  assist  the  adminis 
tration  of  the  universe.  Do  not  be  so  impatient  to 
set  the  town  right  concerning  the  unfounded  preten 
sions  and  the  false  reputation  of  certain  men  of 
standing.  They  are  laboring  harder  to  set  the  town 


NEW  ENGLAND   REFORMERS.  T.  3 

right  concerning  themselves,  and  will  certainly  suc« 
ceed.  Suppress  for  a  few  days  your  criticism  on  the 
insufficiency  of  this  or  that  teacher  or  experimenter, 
and  he  will  have  demonstrated  his  insufficiency  to  all 
men's  eyes.  In  like  manner  let  a  man  fall  into  the 
divine  circuits,  and  he  is  enlarged.  Obedience  to  his 
genius  is  the  only  liberating  influence.  We  wish  to 
escape  from  subjection,  and  a  sense  of  inferiority, — ~ 
and  we  make  self-denying  ordinances,  we  drink1 
water,  we  eat  grass,  we  refuse  the  laws,  we  go  to 
jail :  it  is  all  in  vain ;  only  by  obedience  to  his 
genius ;  only  by  the  freest  activity  is  the  way  consti 
tutional  to  him,  does  an  angel  seem  to  arise  before  a 
man,  and  lead  him  by  the  hand  out  of  all  the  wards 
of  the  prison. 

That  which  befits  us,  embosomed  in  beauty  and 
wonder  as  we  are,  is  cheerfulness  and  courage,  and 
the  endeavor  to  realize  our  aspirations.  The  life  of 
man  is  the  true  romance,  which,  when  it  is  valiantly 
conducted,  will  yield  the  imagination  a  higher  joy 
than  any  fiction.  All  around  us,  what  powers  are 
wrapped  up  under  the  coarse  mattings  of  custom,  and 
all  wonder  prevented.  It  is  so  wonderful  to  our 
neurologists  that  a  man  can  see  without  his  eyes,  that 
it  does  not  occur  to  them,  that  it  is  just  as  wonder 
ful,  that  he  should  see  with  them ;  and  that  is  ever 


280  NEW  ENGLAND   REFORMERS. 

the  difference  between  the  wise  and  tht>  unwise :  the 
latter  wonders  at  what   is   unusual,  the  wise   man 
Bonders  at  the  usual.     Shall  not  the  heart  which 
las  received  so  much,  trust  the  Power  by  which   it 
lives?     May  it  not  quit  other  leadings,  and  listen  to 
the  Soul  that  has  guided  it  so  gently,  and  taught  it 
so  much,  secure  that  the  future  will  be  worthy  of 
past? 


LIFE  OF  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON,  the  fourth  child  and  third  son 
of  William  Emerson,  Minister  of  the  first  church  in  Boston, 
was  born  May  25,  1803.  His  mother  was  Ruth  Haskins  of 
Boston,  who  married  William  Emerson  in  June  1796. 
The  latter  had  been  ordained  in  1792  and  settled  over  a 
small  congregation  at  Harvard  twelve  miles  from  Concord. 
He  was  called  to  the  first  church  in  Boston  and  settled  there 
Sept.  22,  1799. 

Such  animal  spirits  as  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  could  boast 
were  derived  from  his  father :  the  higher  and  rarer  elements 
of  character  from  a  mother  "  whose  mind  had  set  its  stamp 
upon  manners  of  peculiar  softness  and  natural  grace  and 
quiet  dignity."  The  father  was  indeed  a  clergyman,  and 
not  too  obviously  deficient  in  the  staidness  becoming  the 
clerical  character  ;  but,  genial  and  social,  more  of  a  mora 
list  than  a  divine,  rather  a  man  of  letters  than  a  man  of 
learning,  he  represented  a  character  notably  modified  since 
the  time  that  its  prototypes  had  crossed  the  Atlantic. 

Emerson's  father  died  May  12th,  1811.  The  mother  and 
her  young  family  were  left  with  scant  means,  but  the  bless 
ings  of  this  condition,  Ralph  Waldo  recognized  afterwards, 
when,  after  a  beautiful  description  of  eager,  blushing  boyg 
comparing  the  intellectual  treasures  amassed  in  hours 
snatched  from  a  life  of  stern  duty  and  unflinching  task 
work,  Emerson  adds : 

NOTE  BY  AMEEICAN  EDITOR  : — This  admiring  eulogy  of  Emer 
son  and  masterly  analysis  of  his  writings,  is  mostly  compiled 
from  his  *'  Life  "  by  RICHARD  GARNETT  L.  L.  D.  an  Englishman. 

It  was  first  published  in  1888  by  Walter  Scott,  London. 


2  LIFE  OF 

"  What  is  the  hoop  that  holds  them  staunch  ?  It  is  the  iron 
baud  of  poverty,  of  necessity,  of  austerity,  which,  excluding 
them  from  the  sensual  enjoyments  which  make  other  boys  too 
early  old,  has  directed  their  activity  into  safe  and  right  channels, 
and  made  them,  despite  themselves,  reverers  of  the  grand  and 
beautiful,  and  the  good.  Ah,  short-sighted  students  of  books,  of 
nature,  and  of  man  !  too  happy  could  they  know  their  advant 
ages,  they  pine  for  freedom  from  that  mild  parental  yoke;  they 
sigh  for  fine  clothes,  for  riches,  for  the  theatre,  and  premature 
freedom  and  dissipation  which  others  possess.  Woe  to  them  if 
their  wishes  were  crowned !  The  angels  that  dwelt  with  them, 
and  are  weaving  laurels  of  life  for  their  youthful  brows,  are  Toil 
and  Want,  and  Truth  and  Mutual  Faith." 

The  chronicle  of  Emerson's  schooldays,  complete  as  re 
gards  his  instruction  and  the  routine  of  study,  affcrds  but 
little  material  for  constructing  a  living  image  of  the  scholar 
himself.  Some  who  have  recorded  their  reminiscences  in 
late  life,  evidently  speak  less  of  what  they  saw  than  of  what 
they  wish  they  had  seen ;  others  candidly  admit  that  they 
saw  nothing.  One  fact,  however,  is  both  clear  in  itself,  and 
a  clear  proof  how  entirely  in  Emerson's  as  in  most  other 
cases,  the  child  fathered  the  man.  Always  among  his 
school-mates,  he  was  never  of  them.  There  was  a  certain 
aloofness  which  never  allowed  them  to  consider  him  quite 
one  of  themselves  ;  he  was  not  a  schoolboy,  but  a  boy  at 
school.  This  peculiar  distinction  he  preserved  through  his 
life  ;  without  stiffness  or  churlishness,  affectation  or  assump 
tion,  he  always  put  and  kept  a  distance  between  himself 
and  others,  which  rendered  his  personal  influence,  apart 
from  his  writing  and  his  oratory,  smaller  than  that  of 
almost  any  other  great  teacher.  It  is  noteworthy  that  his 
intimates  always  call  \i\mJMr.  Emerson.'  Enthusiasm  never 
got  beyond  the  hem  of  his  garment ;  and  this  though  the 
man  was  as  simple,  transparent,  and  unaffected  as  if  he  had 
been  a  great  naturalist,  instead  of  a  cultivator  of  moral 
•cience.  His  isolation  was  simply  the  effect  of  an  unlike- 
ness  to  others  not  necessarily  indicative  of  mental  superiority, 


EMERSON.  8 

and  so  far  disadvantageous  that  in  later  life  it  prevented 
his  exercising  that  moral  control  over  his  congregation 
which  might  have  been  easily  exerted  by  an  inferior  man. 
The  few  definite  notices  that  we  possess  of  him  at  this  early 
period  are  mostly  indicative  of  this  involuntary  spiritual 
exclusiveness.  "He  had  then,"  said  an  old  schoolfellow  to 
Dr.  Holmes,  "the  same  manner  and  courtly  hesitation  in 
addressing  you  that  you  have  known  in  him  since."  "He 
seemed,"  says  the  youth  he  taught  at  college,  "  to  dwell 
apart,  as  if  in  a  tower,  from  which  he  looked  upon  every 
thing  from  a  loophole  of  his  own."  Taxed  on  one  occasion 
with  assuming  an  air  of  superiority,  he  replied  with  vera 
cious  simplicity,  "  I  did  not  know  it,  sir."  Such  a  preten 
sion,  had  it  indeed  been  advanced,  would  have  seemed  the 
less  justifiable,  as  he  was  by  no  means  a  brilliant  scholar,  or 
remarkably  prominent  in  his  class.  He  was  indeed,  on  one 
occasion,  selected  to  deliver  a  poem  of  his  own  composition, 
but  only  after  the  task  had  been  declined  by  seven  of  his 
reputed  betters.  "  Attended  a  dissertation  of  Emerson's  in 
the  morning,  on  the  subject  of  Ethical  Philosophy,"  writes 
Josiah  Quincy:  "I  found  it  long  and  dry."  And  again, 
"Emerson's  valedictory  exercise  rather  poor  and  did  but 
little  honor  to  the  class."  It  was  not  known  that  his  boy 
hood  had  been  fascinated  by  one  of  the  writers  least  likely 
to  interest  and  average  youth,  Montaigne  ;  and  that  he 
habitually  carried  a  translation  of  Pascal's  Pensees  to 
church  with  him.  It  is  a  curious  instance  of  the  meeting  of 
extremes  that  the  most  believing  of  men  should  have  been 
thus  early  attracted  to  these  two  great  and  in  different  ways 
typical  sceptics. 

Emerson's  schooling  had  commenced  before  he  was  three, 
and  a  week  ere  he  attained  that  ripe  age  his  father  seems 
half  disappointed  that  "  Ralph  does  not  read  very  well 
yet."  After  another  spell  of  learning  under  Lawson  Lyon, 
««  a  severe  teacher,"  at  the  age  of  ten  he  entered  the  Boston 
Latin  School,  then  or  shortly  afterwards  under  an  excellent 
master,  Mr.  Apthorp  Gould.  Here  he  showed  a  talent  for 
speech-making  and  rhyming  which  gained  his  master's  good 
will,  but  the  only  incident  of  any  interest  recorded  is  the 


4  LIFE  OF 

whole  school  turning  out  to  aid  in  throwing  up  defenses  on 
Noddle  Island  against  an  expected  visit  from  the  British — > 
then,  to  the  shame  of  both  nations,  a  hostile  fleet.  Emer 
son  distinctly  remembered  the  holiday,  but  could  never  rec 
ollect  that  the  young  engineers  had  done  any  work.  In 
1817  he  entered  Harvard  College,  under  favor  of  an  ar 
rangement  resembling  a  Cambridge  sizarship.  He  was 
made  "  President's  freshman,"  or  messenger  to  summon 
delinquents  and  announce  orders  and  regulations,  which  in 
sured  him  free  lodging  ;  and  waiter  at  Commons,  which 
saved  him  three-fourths  of  his  board.  He  also  participated 
in  several  minor  benefactions  for  poor  scholars,  and  after  a 
while  eked  out  his  means  still  further  by  giving  supple 
mentary  lessons  to  a  youth  less  educated  than  himself, 
whose  character  of  him  has  already  been  cited,  and  who, 
when  a  distinguished  clergyman  in  after  years,  gratefully 
acknowledged  his  obligation  to  him — rather  as  Mentor, 
however,  than  as  instructor.  Emerson's  backwardness  in 
mathematics  almost  brought  him  into  disgrace,  and  he 
seems  to  have  evinced  no  special  proficiency  except  in 
Greek.  The  Greek  professor,  the  eloquent  Edward  Everett, 
inspired  him  with  enthusiastic  admiration  ;  and  the  Hel 
lenic  bent  of  his  mind  was  further  disclosed  by  a  successful 
prize  essay  on  Socrates.  "  Why  not  Locke,  Paley,  or 
Stewart  ?  "  asked  the  President,  to  whom  Ca3sar  and  Pom- 
pey  were  evidently  much  alike.  Emerson  himself  could 
not  have  told,  but  he  held  serenely  on  his  own  course,  reso 
lute  alike  in  his  acceptance  of  the  mental  food  he  found 
wholesome  and  his  avoidance  of  that  which  did  not  com 
mend  itself  to  his  instinct.  Like  many  another  active- 
minded  youth  in  similar  circumstances,  he  indemnified  him 
self  for  the  distastefulness  of  a  large  portion  of  the  college 
course  by  a  wide  ranging  over  general  literature,  There 
seems  no  trace  of  his  study  in  any  modern  continental  lan 
guage  ;  but  he  was  deeply  versed  in  Shakespeare  and  the 
early  English  dramatists  ;  and  Swift,  Addison,  and  Stern  are 
named  among  the  authors  he  introduced  to  the  more  intel 
lectual  among  his  classmates.  Next  to  his  reserve  and  the 
faultless  propriety  of  his  conduct,  his  contemporaries  at 


EMERSONc  O 

Harvard  seem  chiefly  impressed  with  his  unusua  maturity 
and  sucli  an  equipoise  of  intelligence  as  might  have  become 
a  youthful  Spinoza,  but  rarely  accompanies  the  gift  of  po 
etry  in  verse  or  prose.  Nothing  about  him  seemed  to  indi 
cate  the  future  poet  or  mystic.  There  is  no  trace  of  the  re 
volt  of  a  Shelley,  the  suicidal  tendencies  of  a  Goethe,  or 
Carlyle's  warfare  with  the  Everlasting  No  :  nor  did  genius 
ever  make  its  debut  in  the  world  with  less  passion  and  cru 
dity,  or,  it  must  be  added,  with  less  apparent  promise.  By 
so  much  as  Emerson  was  before  most  men  in  the  balance 
and  discipline  of  the  ordinary  faculties  of  his  mind,  by  so 
much  was  he  behind  most  inspired  men  in  the  development 
of  the  exceptional. 

The  first  indication  of  deep  thought  in  Emerson's  mind  is 
found  in  a  reminiscence  of  his  own,  perhaps  not  wholly  ac 
curate  in  point  of  date.  It  professedly  relates  to  the  period 
immediately  succeeding  his  graduation  at  Harvard  in  1821, 
when  he  was  assisting  his  brother  William  in  a  school  for 
ladies  which  the  latter  had  established  in  Boston.  In  a 
speech  delivered  many  years  afterwards,  he  laments  his  in 
ability  to  impart  to  his  pupils  what  was  chiefly  precious  to 
himself.  "My  teaching,"  he  says,  "  was  partial  and  exter 
nal.  I  was  at  the  very  time  already  writing  every  night, 
in  my  chamber,  my  first  thoughts  on  morals  and  the  beauti 
ful  laws  of  compensation  and  of  individual  genius,  which  to 
observe  and  illustrate  have  given  sweetness  to  many  hours 
of  my  life.  I  am  afraid  no  hint  of  this  ever  came  into  the 
school,  where  we  clung  to  the  safe  and  cold  details  of  lan 
guages,  geography,  arithmetic,  and  chemistry."  Words 
worth  in  one  of  his  meditative  poems  hints  his  apprehension 
lest  he  should  unawares  "  confound  the  present  feelings 
with  the  past,"  and  it  must  be  owned  that  there  is  little  in 
Emerson's  correspondence  of  this  period  to  intimate  the  ex 
istence  of  the  Essay  on  Compensation,  even  in  embryo.  His 
letters,  however,  though  extant,  have  not  been  fully  pub 
lished  ;  and  a  remarkable  passage  in  one  of  them  (June  19, 
1823)  shows  that  he  even  then  regarded  himself  as  a  poet 
and  a  worshipper  of  Nature, 


0  LIFE  OF 

"  I  am  seeking  to  put  myself  on  a  footing  of  old  acquaintance 
with  nature,  as  a  poet  should  ;  but  the  fair  divinity  is  somewhat 
shy  of  my  advances,  and  I  confess  I  cannot  find  myself  quite  as 
perfectly  at  home  on  the  rock  and  in  the  wood  as  my  ancient, 
and  I  might  say  infant,  aspirations  led  rne  to  expect.  My  aunt 
(of  whom  I  think  you  have  heard  before,  and  who  is  alone 
among  women)  has  spent  a  great  part  of  her  life  in  the  country, 
is  an  idolater  of  nature,  and  counts  but  a  small  number  who 
merit  the  privilege  of  dwelling  among  the  mountains — the  coarse 
thrifty  cit  profanes  the  grove  by  his  presence — and  she  was  anx 
ious  that  her  nephew  might  hold  high  and  reverential  notions  re 
garding  it,  as  the  temple  where  God  and  the  mind  are  to  be  stud 
ied  and  adored,  and  when  the  fiery  soul  can  begin  a  premature 
communication  with  the  other  world.  When  I  took  my  book, 
therefore,  to  the  woods,  I  found  nature  not  half  poetical,  not  half 
visionary  enough.  There  was  nothing  which  the  most  froward 
imagination  could  construe  for  a  moment  into  a  satyr  or  dryad. 
No  Greek  or  Roman  or  even  English  fantasy  could  deceive  me 
one  instant  into  the  belief  of  more  than  met  the  eye.  In  short, 

1  found  that  I  had  only  transplanted  into  the  new  place  my  entire 
personal  identity,  and  was  grievously  disappointed.     Since  I  was 
cured  of  my  air-castles  I  have  fared  somewhat  better ;  and  a  pair 
of  moonlight   evenings  have   screwed  up  my  esteem  several  pegs 
higher,  by  supplying  my  brain  with  several  bright  fragments  of 
thought,    and  making   me  dream  that  mind  as  well  as  body  re 
spired  more  freely  here." 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  country  retreat  to  which 
Emerson  had  repaired  when  he  penned  the  above  lines  was 
by  no  means  a  lodge  in  a  vast  wilderness,  but  a  wooded 
corner  of  the  suburban  district  of  Roxbury,  picturesque 
enough,  but  so  near  Boston  as  to  have  been  in  our  time  absorbed 
by  the  enlargement  of  the  city.  Mrs.  Emerson  had  there 
taken  up  her  abode  in  Canterbury  Lane,  known  also  as 
Light  Lane,  from  the  gloom  of  the  overshadowing  trees,  and 
Featherbed  Lane,  in  compliment  to  the  ruggedness  of  the 
roadway.  "Poets  succeed  better  in  fiction  than  in  truth." 
While  Emerson  disparaged  his  sylvan  retirement  in  prose, 


EMERSON.  7 

he  was  by  no  means  backward  in  his  claims  for  it  in  the  fol 
lowing  lines,  the  first  of  any  importance  that  he  seem*  to 
have  composed : 

*  I  am  going  to  my  own  hearth-stone, 
Burrowed  in  yon  green  hills  alone, — 
A  secret  nook  in  a  pleasant  land, 
Whose  groves  the  frolic  fairies  planned ; 
Where  arches  green  the  live-long  day 
Echo  the  blackbird's  roundelay, 
And  vulgar  feet  have  never  trod 
A  spot  that  is  sacred  to  thought  and  God. 

Oh  when  I  am  safe  in  my  sylvan  home, 
I  tread  on  the  pride  of  Greece  and  Rome ; 
And  when  I  am  stretched  beneath  the  pines 
Where  the  evening  star  so  holy  shines, 
I  laugh  at  the  lore  and  the  pride  of  man, 
At  the  sophist  schools  and  the  learned  clan  ; 
For  what  are  they  all  in  their  high  conceit, 
When  man  in  the  bush  with  God  may  meet  ?  " 

By  1825  Waldo's  three  years  of  school-keeping  had  put 
from  two  to  three  thousand  dollars  into  his  pocket,  and  he 
felt  enabled  to  terminate  the  parenthesis  in  his  own  educa 
tion  by  entering  the  Divinty  School  at  Cambridge,  to  pre 
pare  himself  to  follow  the  profession  of  all  those  among  his 
ancestors  who  had  been  born  upon  American  soil. 

The  time  when  the  young  schoolmaster  thus  for  a  season 
retrograded  into  the  pupilar  condition  was  one  of  repose  and 
yet  of  expectation,  pregnant  witli  the  germs  of  great  things 
to  come.  It  was  for  long  afterwards  looked  back  upon  with 
regret  as  "  the  era  of  good  feeling."  The  last  promin 
ent  statesman  of  America's  heroic  age  was  President ;  two, 
more  illustrious  still,  were  descending  towards  the  grave  in 
the  sight  of  all ;  the  atmosphere  seemed  suffused  with  their 
departing  brightness,  and  faction  stood  for  the  moment 
abashed  by  the  solemn  euthanasia  of  an  age  of  giants. 


8  LIFE   OF 

In  choosing  the  Church  as  his  profession,  Emerson  fol 
lowed  the  path  which  seemed  marked  for  one  in  whose  veins 
ran  so  much  clerical  blood,  but  at  the  same  time  he  obeyed 
his  own  conviction  of  what  was  best.  He  had  formed  a 
sound  estimate  of  his  powers,  and  believed  that  in  the  course 
he  was  following  he  should  do  them  justice.  He  fancied, 
indeed,  that  "  his  abilities  were  below  his  ambition  ;"  but 
this  might  well  be,  since  his  aspiration,  though  unambitious 
of  worldly  distinction,  contemplated  great  results  in  the  in 
tellectual  world  ;  in  metis  urn  infinitumque  aliquid.  He  fully 
recognized  that  his  logical  faculty  compared  unfavorably 
with  his  imagination,  but  he  remarked  with  justice  that  this 
was  no  reason  why  he  should  abstain  from  theology,  "  for 
the  highest  species  of  reasoning  upon  divine  subjects  is 
rather  the  fruit  of  a  sort  of  moral  imagination  than  of  the 
reasoning  machines,  such  as  Locke  and  Clarke  and  David 
Hume,'*  He  proceeds  to  instance  Channing's  Dudleian 
lecture  as  his  model,  and  his  admiration  did  not  misguide 
him.  There  is  not,  perhaps,  in  the  whole  arena  of  theolog 
ical  literature  such  another  instance  of  clear  calm  sense  exalted 
to  the  highest  eloquence  by  devoutness  of  spirit  and  moral 
enthusiasm  as  is  afforded  by  the  discourses  of  Channing. 
Whatever  is  best  in  the  seventeenth  and  the  eighteenth 
century  pulpit  seems  united  in  this  ornament  of  the  nine 
teenth:  but  out  of  the  pulpit  the  charm  of  Channing's  elo 
quence,  if  not  dispelled,  lost  much  of  its  fascination.  The 
fervent,  faultless  man  of  God  whose  heroic  attitude  and 
serene  eloquence  could  fire  multitudes  and  quell  mobs 
seemed  to  have  little  faculty  for  dealing  with  his  fellow  men 
face  to  face.  An  atmosphere  of  reserve  environed  him  ;  he 
gave  forth  more  light  than  heat.  Emerson's  personal  resort 
to  him  ended  in  disappointment ;  he  was  hardly  capable,  the 
younger  man  thought,  of  taking  another  person's  point  of 
view,  or  of  communicating  himself  freely  in  private  conver 
sation.  "  He  does  not  converse,"  said  George  Combe,  "  but 
deliver*  an  essay,  and  waits  patiently  to  hear  an  essay  in  re 
turn."  His  peculiar  secret  of  exalting  morality  into  re 
ligion  by  enthusiasm  for  the  right  and  good  was  Emerson's 
already  by  natural  endowment;  so  that  the  latter  could  not 


EMEKSON.  9 

feel  that  he  had  much  to  learn  from  him,  nor  did  he  find 
another  guide.  After  all,  his  difficulties  were  no  more  than 
must  naturally  occur  to  every  thoughtful  person.  He  was 
not  blind  to  the  strong  points  of  the  old  Puritan  theology. 
"  Presbyterianism  and  Calvinism  make  Christianity  a  more 
real  and  tangible  system,  and  give  it  some  novelties  which 
were  worth  unfolding  to  the  ignorance  of  men."  Bu*  he 
felt  no  disposition  to  accept  the  assumptions  on  which  it  was 
based.  "That  the  administration  of  eternity  is  fickle,  tLat 
the  God  of  revelation  hath  seen  cause  to  repent  and  botch 
up  the  ordinances  of  the  God  of  Nature,  I  hold  it  not  ir 
reverent  but  impious  in  us  to  assume."  He  was  not  too 
well  satisfied  with  the  average  standard  of  devotional  fervor 
in  the  Unitarian  Church  ;  but  many  had  transcended  it, 
and  why  not  he  ?  "I  know  that  there  are  in  my  vicinitj 
clergymen  who  are  not  merely  literary  or  philosophical." 

Seldom  has  neophyte  been  more  buffeted  by  accident  and 
fatality  than  Emerson.  He  had  scarcely  been  a  month  at 
the  Cambridge  Divinity  School  ere  his  overtasked  eyes 
failed  him,  and  general  debility  drove  him  to  the  country, 
''  to  try  the  experiment  of  hard  work  for  the  benefit  of 
health."  It  profited  him,  but  more  than  a  year  elapsed  ere 
he  returned  to  Cambridge.  In  the  interim  he  had  for  a 
short  time  taken  charge  of  a  school  at  Chelmsford,  and 
afterwards  of  that  established  at  Roxbury  by  his  brother 
Edward,  the  genius,  it  was  then  deemed,  of  the  family,  who 
had  overtasked  his  strength,  and  been  driven  to  try  a  voyage 
to  the  Mediterranean.  A  pupil  of  Emerson's  at  the 
Chelmsford  School  remembers  his  grave  and  quiet,  yet  en 
gaging  demeanor,  the  subjection  in  which  he  could  keep  the 
boys  by  a  look  or  a  tone,  a  peculiar  expression  in  his  eyes, 
as  if  he  saw  things  invisible  to  others.  Mr.  John  Holmes, 
the  brother  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  records  his  undoubt- 
ing  calmness  of  manners,  the  sternness  of  his  very  infre 
quent  rebukes,  his  kindliness  in  explaining  or  advising. 
"  Every  inch  a  king  in  his  dominion.  Looking  back,  he 
seems  to  me  rather  like  a  captive  philosopher  set  to  tending 
flocks."  "  He  was  not,"  says  another  witness,  "  especially 
successful  as  a  teacher.  He  was  studying  for  the  ministry, 


10  LIFE  OF 

and  his  heart  was  centured  in  his  studies.  Still,  everything 
went  along  with  the  utmost  smoothness."  While  he  was  at 
Chelmsford  an  incident  occurred  wliich  must  have  strength 
ened  his  resolution  to  be  a  minister,  had  it  needed  strength 
ening.  This  was  the  aberration  of  his  brother  William, 
who  had  gone  to  study  theology  in  Germany,  and  there  im 
bibed  doubts  which  withheld  him  from  the  Church.  Fore 
seeing  the  pain  which  this  would  occasion  his  mother,  he 
had  sought  counsel  from  Goethe,  who  received  him 
sympathetically,  and,  true  to  his  own  preference  for  the  con 
crete  over  the  abstract,  recommended  him  rather  to  conceal 
his  scruples  than  grieve  his  kindred.  Conscience,  however, 
had  the  mastery  in  William's  mind,  and  he  forsook  theology 
for  law,  rising  ultimately  to  the  judicial  bench.  Some  con 
gregation  lost  something,  for,  according  to  his  cousin  George, 
William  Emerson  had  the  sweetest  voice  ever  heard.  Upon 
his  return  he  visited  Waldo  at  Chelmsford  to  discuss  the 
matter  with  him.  "  I  was  very  sad,"  says  Emerson,  "  for  I 
knew  how  it  would  grieve  my  mother,  and  it  did."  The 
more  reason,  then,  that  he  himself  should  adhere  to  the 
path  she  had  wished,  and  he  had  chosen. 

Though  unable  to  join  the  regular  class  at  Cambridge, 
Emerson  had  occasionally  attended  lectures,  and  the 
authorities,  convinced  of  his  worth  and  seriousness,  and 
perhaps  recognizing  his  hereditary  claim  to  ordination,  were 
content  to  dispense  with  any  considerable  acquaintance  with 
technical  divinity.  If  they  had  examined  him,  he  said 
afterwards,  his  licence  would  assuredly  have  been  refused. 
"  Approbated  to  preach  "  by  the  Middlesex  Association  of 
Ministers  on  October  10,  1826,  he  delivered  his  first  dis 
course  at  Waltham  five  days  afterwards.  The  subject  was 
suggested  by  the  remark  of  a  laborer  with  whom  he  had 
worked  when  striving  to  fortify  his  constitution  by  rustic 
toil  in  the  preceeding  year—"  a  Methodist,  who,  though 
ignorant  and  rude,  had  some  deep  thoughts.  He  said  to  me 
that  men  were  always  praying,  and  that  all  prayers  were 
granted.  I  meditated  much  on  this  saying,  and  wrote  my 
first  sermon  therefrom  ;  of  which  the  divisions  were  (1) 
Men  are  always  praying  ;  (2)  All  their  prayers  are  granted  ( 


EMERSON.  11 

(3)  We  must  beware,  then,  what  we  ask."  Emerson  could 
hardly  have  begun  his  career  as  a  public  teacher  more 
characteristically  than  by  the  unfolding  of  so  deep  a  truth 
so  sheathed  in  apparent  paradox :  nor  was  it  less  like  him. 
self  to  waive  at  the  very  outset  his  own  academical  claims 
in  favor  of  the  simple  wisdom  of  one  ''taught  of  the 
Sp'irit." 

A  month  later  Emerson  was  driven  south  by  a  recurrence 
of  his  chest  complaint.  After  a  short  stay  at  Charleston, 
he  journeyed  on  to  St.  Augustine,  in  Florida,  but  recently 
acquired  by  the  United  States,  and  still  far  more  Spanish 
than  Anglo-American.  "  An  ancient,  fortified,  dilapidated 
sand-bank  of  a  town,"  whose  population  of  twelve  hundred 
was  unequally  divided  between  Americans  fulfilling  their 
manifest  destiny  as  oiFice-holders,  and  Spanish  families  with 
retinues  of  blacks.  "  The  Americans  live  on  their  offices  ; 
the  Spaniards  keep  billard  tables ;  or,  if  not,  they  send 
their  negroes  to  the  mud  to  bring  oysters,  or  to  the  shore  to 
bring  fish,  and  the  rest  of  the  time  fiddle,  mask,  and  dance. 
It  was  reported  in  the  morning  that  a  man  was  at  work  in 
the  public  square,  and  all  our  family  turned  out  to  see  him. 
I  stroll  on  the  sea-beach,  and  drive  a  green  orange  over  the 
sand  with  a  stick."  He  could  not  have  been  better  em 
ployed.  Health  came  back  gradually  in  the  mild  air,  and  his 
mental  development  was  assisted  by  some  practical  insight  into 
the  system  of  slavery,  and  by  acquaintance  with  the  first 
foreigner  lie  had  known  intimately,  a  man  of  different  type 
to  any  he  had  yet  encountered.  This  was  no  other  than 
Achille  Murat,  son  of  King  Joachim  and  nephew  of  Napo 
leon,  at  that  time  a  planter  at  Tallahassee.  "  A  philoso 
pher,  a  scholar,  a  man  of  the  world  ;  very  sceptical,  but 
very  candid,  and  an  ardent  lover  of  truth."  Emerson  ac 
companied  him  to  his  plantation,  and  they  were  fellow 
passengers  on  ship-board  back  to  Charleston.  He  reached 
home  in  June,  stopping  and  preaching  on  the  way  at 
Charleston,  Washington,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York. 
The  abstraction  from  purely  professional  duties  and  interests 
had  certainly  benefited  him.  His  aspirations  had  become 
more  varied,  his  tastes  more  versatile ;  he  felt  at  times,  he 


12  LIFE  OF 

tells  his  aunt,  as  though  he  might  become  a  novelist  or  a 
poet ;  he  even  experienced  spasmodic  yearnings  to  be  a 
painter.  These  growth-pains  of  genius  did  not  perturb  his 
demeanor  ;  he  was  still  regarded  as  a  staid  young  man, 
rather  pedantically  exact  in  keeping  his  diary,  and  far  less 
promising  than  his  brilliant  brother  Edward.  His  origin 
ality  was  mainly  manifested  in  the  decision  of  his  ethics. 
He  preached  independence.  "  Owe  no  conformity  to  cus 
tom,"  he  said,  "  against  your  private  judgment."  "  Have 
no  regard  to  the  influence  of  your  example,  but  act  always 
from  the  simplest  motive."  But  while  thus  asserting  his 
right  to  disregard  social  conventions  if  he  saw  fit,  he 
apparently  felt  no  call  to  quarrel  with  them.  His  one 
eccentricity  could  be  indulged  without  attracting  attention. 
"  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  humor  in  me,  my  strong  propensity 
for  strolling.  I  deliberately  shut  up  my  books  in  a  cloudy 
July  noon,  put  on  my  old  clothes  and  old  hat,  and  slink 
away  to  the  whortleberry  bushes,  and  slip  with  the  greatest 
satisfaction  into  a  little  cow-path,  where  I  am  sure  I  can 
defy  observation.  This  point  gained,  I  solace  myself  for 
hours  with  picking  blueberries  and  other  trash  of  the 
woods,  far  from  fame  behind  the  birch  trees.  I  seldom  en 
joy  hours  as  I  do  these.  I  remember  them  in  winter ;  I 
expect  them  in  spring.  I  do  not  know  a  creature  that  I 
think  has  the  same  humor,  or  would  think  it  respectable." 
The  impressions  thus  imbibed  were  to  be  given  back  in  due 
season.  Emerson's  best  writings  are  the  breathings  of  a 
soul  saturated  with  sylvan  influences. 

For  nearly  a  year  Emerson  continued  a  student  at  Divin 
ity  Hall,  "  his  health  the  same  stupid  riddle  that  it  always 
had  been,"  "  treading  on  eggs  to  strengthen  his  constitu 
tion,"  "lingering  on  system,  writing  something  less  than  a 
sermon  a  month."  The  happy  consequence  was  that  in 
April,  1828,  he  reports  himself  as  "looking  less  like  a  mon 
ument  and  more  like  a  man."  In  what  may  be  termed  his 
moral  regimen,  he  seems,  as  in  most  things,  to  have  been  a 
model.  He  had  nothing  of  the  peevishness  of  the  invalid. 
"  I  court  laughing  persons,  and  after  a  merry  or  only  a  gos 
siping  hour,  when  the  talk  has  been  mere  soap-bubbles,  I 


EMERSON.  18 

have  lost  all  sense  of  the  mouse  in  my  chest,  am  at  ease, 
and  can  take  my  pen  or  book." 

The  easy  stream  of  his  life  was  soon  to  be  ruffled  by  a 
painful,  almost  a  tragic  event.  Waldo,  the  dutiful  youth 
who  followed  the  career  desired  by  his  mother,  who  had 
never  been  overtaken  in  a  fault  or  had  given  a  moment's  un 
easiness  to  those  who  loved  him,  save  from  the  weakness  of 
his  health,  was  in  that  day  regarded  rather  as  the  example 
than  the  hope  of  his  family.  He  had  not,  like  William, 
strayed  even  beyond  the  ample  limits  of  Unitarian  ortho 
doxy  ;  nor  had  he  exhibited  the  versatility,  nigh  akin  to  in 
stability,  of  his  brilliant  brother  Edward.  But  the  family 
pride  and  hope  were  concentrated  on  the  latter.  "  Born  for 
success,"  writes  Waldo* 

"  He  seemed, 

"With  grace  to  win,  with  heart  to  hold, 
With  shining  gifts  that  took  all  eyes, 
With  budding  power  in  college  halls, 
As  pledged  in  coming  days  to  forge 
Weapons  to  guard  the  State,  or  scouge 
Tyrants  despite  their  guards  or  walls." 

This  glowing  estimate  was  confirmed  by  the  judgment  of 
impartial  observers.  "  There  was  no  presage,"  writes  Dr. 
Hedge,  **  of  Emerson's  future  greatness."  "  Refinement  of 
thought  and  selectness  in  the  use  of  language,"  were  indeed 
notable  in  Waldo,  but  only  so  far  as  "  to  give  promise  of  an 
interesting  preacher  to  cultivated  hearers." 

Early  in  1829  Emerson  was  elected  a  colleague  of  Henry 
Ware,  pastor  of  the  Second  Church  in  Boston.  Within  a 
few  weeks  Ware  found  it  necessary  to  seek  health  in  Europe, 
and  Emerson  became  sole  incumbent.  On  December  24, 
1828,  he  became  engaged  to  Ellen  Tucker,  a  young  lady  of 
seventeen,  daughter  of  a  deceased  Boston  merchant,  living  at 
Concord  with  her  mother  and  stepfather.  He  had  been  smitten 
with  her  a  year  before,  but  "  thought  I  had  got  over  my 
blushes  and  my  wishes."  "  I  saw  Ellen  at  once,"  he  wrote 


14  LtPE  OF 

afterwards,  "  in  all  her  beauty,  and  she  never  disappointed 
me  except  in  her  death."  Ellen  Emerson,  ,as  she  became  in 
September,  1829,  faded  so  quickly  out  of  life  and  all  memo 
ries  but  her  husband's,  that  little  seems  to  be  known  of  her 
beyond  her  remarkable  beauty,  her  fatal  delicacy  of  consti 
tution,  and  her  buoyant  spirit.  Within  a  month  of  her  en 
gagement  she  made  Emerson  miserable  by  spitting  blood. 
The  deceptive  malady,  as  usual,  left  much  apparent  ground 
for  hope.  We  have  seen  that  it  did  not  prevent  their  union 
eight  months  afterwards.  In  February  he  wrote  :  **  Ellen 
is  mending  day  by  day.  'Twould  take  more  time  than  I 
can  spare  to  tell  how  excellent  a  piece  of  work  she  is.  She 
trifles  so  much  with  all  her  ails,  and  loses  no  jot  of  spirits, 
that  we  talk  gravely  only  when  asunder."  She  died  in 
February,  1831, 

Emerson's  pulpit  style  is  recalled  by  the  reminiscence  of 
a  hearer  who  heard  him  preach  on  "What  is  a  man  profited 
if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?"  The 
main  emphasis  was  on  the  word  "  own,"  and  the  general 
theme  was  that  to  every  man  the  great  end  of  existence  was 
the  preservation  and  culture  of  his  individual  mind  and  char 
acter.  One  can  understand  from  this  the  remark  of  another 
hearer :  "  In  looking  back  on  his  preaching  I  find  he  has 
impressed  truths  to  which  I  always  assented,  in  such  a  man 
ner  as  to  make  them  appear  new,  like  a  clearer  revelation." 
His  popularity,  if  not  showy,  was  substantial  ;  he  belonged 
to  public  bodies  and  took  part  in  public  affairs  ;  though  no 
politician,  he  opened  his  church  to  the  first  movers  in  the 
anti-slavery  agitation  ;  and  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  prove 
what  to  many  so-called  liberals  seems  doubtful,  that  there  is 
no  incompatibility  between  independent  thought  and  the 
public  ministrations  of  religion.  If  his  discourse  could  not 
impress  the  world  like  Carlyle's,  as  a  sudden  vent  for  im- 
passionate  feelings,  the  silent  accumulation  of  many  years 
of  fierce  inward  conflict,  he  could  hold  religion  up  to  men  as 
a  serene  lamp  lit  at  the  tranquil  but  intense  flame  which 
burned  in  his  own  bosom.  He  could  and  did  avoid  the 
great  stumbling-block  of  the  teacher  by  the  touch  of  genius 
which  redeems  familiar  truth  from  platitude  and  common- 


EMERSON.  15 

place,  and,  according  to  a  happy  definition,  presents  religion 
not  merely  as  morality,  but  as  morality  touched  with  emo 
tion.  In  the  duties  of  pastoral  visitation  he  seems  to  have 
been  less  efficient ;  and  here  indeed  it  is  easy  to  conceive 
that  nice  refinement  and  respect  for  the  sacredness  of  other 
men's  convictions  may  sometimes  prove  a  disqualification, 
and  that  obtrusiveness  may  be  a  condition  of  success. 
"  Young  man,"  said  a  spiritual  patient,  scandalized  at  not 
being  treated  secundum  arlem,  "  if  you  don't  know  your 
business,  you  had  better  go  home."  It  is  characteristic  of 
his  deep  humanity,  and  his  aversion  to  fuss  and  common 
place,  that  he  appeared  to  least  advantage  at  a  funeral.  A 
professional  observer,  a  sexton,  remarked  that  on  such  occa 
sions  "he  did  not  seem  to  be  at  ease  at  all.  To  tell  the 
truth,  in  my  opinion,  that  young  man  was  not  born  to  be  a 
minister."  Emerson  was  soon  to  feel  the  need  of  such  qual 
ifications  as  ministers  of  less  refined  but  stronger  mould 
bring  to  bear  upon  their  congregations. 

He  resigned  his  pastorate  in  September,  1832.  It  was 
not  a  divorce  on  account  of  incompatibility.  There  is  noth 
ing  to  show  that  he  felt  the  least  uneasiness  in  the  clerical 
habit,  of  which  indeed  he  did  not  divest  himself  for  some 
time  afterwards.  But  it  was  a  necessary  condition  of  his 
ministry  that  he  should  be  at  liberty  to  follow  his  own  high 
est  conceptions ;  if  these  clashed  with  the  requirements  of 
his  congregation,  their  connection  could  no  longer  endure. 
The  cause  of  difference  was  characteristic  of  his  independ 
ence  :  it  related  to  a  rite  which  nine-tenths  of  those  who 
felt  with  him  would  have  tolerated  as  harmless.  Relig 
ious  persons  may  from  one  point  of  view  be  distinguished 
according  as  they  do  or  do  not  feel  the  need  of  external 
ceremonies  in  worship.  To  some,  painting,  music,  gorgeous 
vestments,  seem  the  appropriate  apparel  of  religion ;  to 
others,  they  are  an  impertinence,  almost  an  offence.  Which 
temper  represents  the  higher  conception  need  not  be  dis 
cussed  here  ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  certain  that  while 
the  ancient  religions  blazed  with  ritual  splendor,  the  found 
ers  of  more  spiritual  creeds  have  always  striven  to  reduce 
this  to  a  minimum,  and  none  more  so  than  the  Founder 


16  LIFE  OF 

of  Christianity.  The  only  two  rites  to  which  he  gave  his 
sanction  might  be  deemed  to  represent  the  ne  plus  ultra  of 
ceremonial  simplicity ;  but  a  germ  remained,  prolific  in 
strange  growths.  No  church,  probably,  was  less  obnoxious 
to  sacramentalism  than  Emerson's  ;  but  he  could  not  be 
content  so  long  as  the  pure  simplicity  of  worship  was,  in 
his  view,  desecrated  by  any  material  contact.  He  persuaded 
himself  that  the  Lord's  supper  had  not  been  designed  as  a 
permanent  institution.  He  protested  that  he  was  not  "  so 
foolish  as  to  declaim  against  forms.  Forms  are  as  essential 
as  bodies  ;  but  to  exalt  particular  forms  is  unreasonable,  and 
is  alien  to  the  spirit  of  Christ."  Here  was  the  question  in  a 
nut-shell,  as  respected  Emerson's  connection  with  his  con 
gregation.  He  had  outgrown  the  form,  or  thought  he  had, 
but  had  they  ?  It  quickly  appeared  that  his  scruples  were 
unintelligible  to  them.  It  was  equally  apparent  that  they 
no  more  wished  him  to  go  than  he  wished  to  be  gone.  Com 
promises  were  suggested,  but  proved  impracticable.  He 
would  have  remained  if  the  material  elements  could  have 
been  dispensed  with,  and  the  service  made  purely  commem 
orative.  They  would  have  let  him  deal  with  the  symbols  as 
he  pleased,  provided  that  they  were  retained.  He  retreated 
into  the  country  to  ponder  over  the  matter,  while  rumors  of 
his  mental  derangement  went  abroad.  These  he  did  not 
condescend  to  refute  :  but  to  his  friends,  urging  him  not  to 
stickle  over-much  for  points  of  form,  he  replied  that  his 
punctiliousness  was  rather  for  his  people  than  himself.  "  I 
cannot  go  habitually  to  an  institution  which  they  esteem 
holiest  with  indifference  or  dislike."  "  It  is  my  desire  to  do 
nothing  which  I  cannot  do  with  my  whole  heart.  Having 
said  this,  I  have  said  all.  I  have  no  hostility  to  this  insti 
tution  ;  I  am  only  stating  my  want  of  sympathy  with  it.  I 
am  content  that  it  stand  to  the  end  of  the  world,  if  it  please 
men  and  please  Heaven,  and  I  shall  rejoice  in  all  the  good 
it  produces."  The  dignity  of  this  farewell  is  not  exempt 
from  a  certain  soreness.  Emerson  was,  indeed,  pained  and 
mortified;  he  had  hoped  to  have  carried  his  people  with 
him,  and  though  still  considering  himself  as  a  clergyman, 
felt  thenceforward  something  of  u  a  grudge  against  preach- 


KMERSON.  If 

ing."  He  could  not  conceal  from  himself  that  the  pastoral 
career  to  which  everything  had  seemed  to  invite  him  had 
been  a  failure  :  nor  could  it  then  be  seen  what  a  necessary 
and  invaluable  stage  it  had  been  in  his  own  development. 
"  I  look  back,"  he  said  in  his  farewell  letter  of  Dec.  22nd, 
"  with  a  painful  sense  of  weakness  to  the  little  service  I 
have  been  able  to  render  after  so  much  expectation  on  my 
part."  But  the  springs  of  hope  and  energy  were  not  de 
stroyed.  Emerson's  vitality  was  at  the  time  low  ;  he  had 
never  got  over  his  domestic  sorrow  ;  he  could  not  himself 
quite  resist  a  feeling  of  discouragement,  and  seemed  to  those 
about  him  to  have  mistaken  his  vocation.  He  wrote  a  final 
letter  of  affectionate  farewell  to  his  people,  and  in  a  fortu 
nate  hour,  December  25,  1832,  embarked  in  the  brig  Jasper, 
bound  with  a  cargo  of  West  Indian  produce  for  Malta, 
where  she  arrived  on  the  2nd  of  February. 

The  hero,  unless  also  a  martyr,  generally  appears  upon 
the  scene  at  the  right  time.  Europe  was  just  in  the  state  in 
which  an  intellectually  inquisitive  visitor  would  have  desired 
to  find  her.  Experiments  were  being  tried  everywhere,  in- 
eluding  the  experiment  of  standing  still.  Peace  reigned  in 
every  European  land,  save  for  one  local  civil  war,  but  the 
existing  political  order  was  undermined  everywhere  except 
in  England  and  Russia,  and  hostile  tendencies  had  never 
clashed  more  fiercely  in  the  world  of  thought.  Liberalism 
was  the  ruling  creed  in  theory,  even  among  the  statesmen 
who  resisted  it  in  practice  ;  but  a  formidable  re-action  was 
already  visible  in  the  intellectual  sphere.  Newman  was 
striving  to  reconcile  the  old  Church  with  Anglicanism, 
Lamennais  with  socialism.  Mediaeval  architecture  was  com 
ing  into  fashion  ;  the  artistic  and  literary  ideals  of  the  pre 
ceding  century  were  falling  into  disrepute.  The  Goths  of 
the  Romantic  school  had  for  the  time  overwhelmed  the  tra 
ditional  classicalism  of  the  Latin  nations.  Scott  reigned  in 
all  European  literatures ;  Byron  was  still  a  great  power ; 
the  seed  sown  by  Shelley  and  Keats  was  beginning  to  come 
up,  though  their  names,  like  those  of  Wordsworth  and  Cole 
ridge,  were  as  yet  only  heard  in  England  and  America. 
Hegel  had  just  repeated  the  feat  and  the  failure  of  Jona- 


18  LIFE  OF 

than  IKdwards  in  constructing  a  system  which  none  could 
refute  and  few  could  receive.  Goethe  had  done  more  for 
European  thought  by  impregnating  it  with  those  germs  of 
an  evolutionary  doctrine  which  afforded  a  battle-ground  to 
the  savants  of  Paris,  while  Lyell  gave  the  idea  of  geological 
uniformity  scientific  shape  in  England,  and  Darwin  yefc 
geologized  in  South  America.  Steam  was  just  above  the 
horizon,  and  electricity  just  below  it.  On  the  whole,  till  the 
leadings  of  Providence  became  more  evident,  the  intellect 
ual  condition  of  society  must  have  appeared  splendidly  an 
archical  ;  an  impression  which  could  be  confirmed  by  the 
extraordinary  mortality  which  had  recently  taken  place 
among  the  sovereigns  of  thought.  "  Les  dieux  s'en  vont," 
said  Heine.  Within  a  year  death  had  removed  Goethe, 
Scott,  Hegel,  Bentham,  and  Cuvier.  Chateaubriand  had 
retired  from  active  life,  and  Coleridge  was  shortly  to  retire 
from  the  world.  A  great  void  was  thus  made  for  the  Ti 
tanic  Hugos  and  Carlyles  of  the  age,  and  its  as  yet  obscure 
Comtes  and  Emersons. 

In  the  first  letter  he  wrote  home  from  Europe,  Emerson 
described  the  purpose  of  his  journey  as  being  "to  find  new 
affinities  between  me  and  my  fellow  men."  Art  and  scen 
ery  were  subordinate  objects.  **  I  collected,"  he  said  after 
wards,  "  neither  cameo,  nor  painting,  nor  medallion;  but  I 
valued  much,  as  I  went  on,  the  growing  pictures  which  the 
ages  had  painted  and  I  reverently  surveyed."  When,  hav 
ing  crossed  from  Malta  into  Sicily,  he  finds  himself  at  Syra 
cuse,  he  is  disappointed  that  "  there  was  scarce  anything 
that  speaks  of  Hiero,  or  Timoleon,  or  Dion.  Yet  I  am 
glad  to  be  where  they  have  been,  and  to  hear  the  bees,  and 
pick  beautiful  wild  flowers  only  three  or  four  miles  from  the 
fountain  Cyane."  "  How  evanescent  and  superficial,"  he 
exclaims  when  in  Rome,  "  is  most  of  that  emotion  which 
names  and  places,  which  art  or  magnificence,  can  awaken  ! 
It  yields  in  me  to  the  interest  which  the  most  ordinary  com 
panion  inspires."  Yet  he  admired  works  of  art,  though  re 
versing  the  traveler's  ordinary  practice  by  displaying  more 
discrimination  than  enthusiasm.  The  churches  struck  him 
particularly,  and  he  was  impressed  with  the  value  of  the 


EMEfcSOff.  19 

aesthetic  element  in  religion,  of  which  he  had  had  no  pre 
vious  experience.  He  was  equally  surprised  that  the  Ameri 
cans  who  had  entered  European  churches  should  submit  to 
such  mean  edifices  at  home ;  and  that  Italians  on  their  side 
should  be  unable  to  *'  devise  ceremonies  in  as  good  and 
manly  taste  as  their  churches  and  pictures  and  music."  The 
sum  total  of  his  impressions,  however,  came  to  much  the 
same  as  he  afterwards  delivered  in  his  suggestive  but  defect 
ive  Essay  on  Art:  "  Painting  seems  to  be  to  the  eye  what 
dancing  is  to  the  limbs.  When  that  has  educated  the  frame 
to  self-possession,  to  nimbleness,  to  grace,  the  steps  of  the 
dancing-master  are  better  forgotten.'*  The  one  thing  he 
really  valued  abroad  was  to  be  able  "  to  recognize  the  same 
man  under  a  thousand  masks,  and  to  hear  the  same  com 
mandment  spoken  to  me  in  Italian  I  was  wont  to  hear  in 
English.  My  greatest  want  is  that  I  never  meet  with  men 
who  are  great  or  interesting."  The  first  exception  he  men- 
lions  is  Landor,  whom  he  sought  out  with  an  instinct  not 
granted  to  many  Englishmen  of  that  day.  Emerson  found 
him  "  living  in  a  cloud  of  pictures  at  his  Villa  Gherardesca," 
and  though  he  could  not  deem  Landor's  real  conversation 
equal  to  his  imaginary  ones,  he  was  able  to  say  "  He  has  a 
wonderful  brain,  despotic,  violent,  inexhaustible,  meant  for 
a  soldier,  by  chance  converted  to  letters."  He  afterwards, 
before  reaching  England,  pronounces  Landor  one  of  the  two 
men  in  Europe  to  whom  he  had  been  able  to  say  something 
in  earnest.  This  was  written  in  Paris,  where  he  had  ar 
rived  on  June  20th,  after  a  flying  visit  to  Venice,  "a  city 
tor  beavers,"  and  Geneva,  where  he  only  visited  Voltaire's 
chateau  under  protest.  New  England  thought  had  traveled 
a  long  way  since  Franklin  brought  his  grandson  to  be  blessed 
by  the  Patriarch  of  Ferney.  Paris  was  pronounced  by 
Emerson  "  a  loud  modern  New  York  of  a  place,"  but,  at 
the  same  time,  "  the  most  hospitable  of  cities."  He  was  in 
London  by  July  21st,  meeting  Mill,  whom  he  does  not  seem, 
to  have  appreciated,  and  Bowring,  who  showed  him  over  the 
house  of  Jeremy  Bentham.  A  more  memorable  interview, 
"  though  rather  a  spectacle  than  a  conversation  "  ("  I  wai 
glad,"  says  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  "  to  show  him  to  Stephen  "), 


20  LIFE  OF 

was  that  with  Coleridge,  "  a  short,  thick  old  man,  with 
bright  blue  eyes  and  fine  clear  complexion,  leaning  upon  his 
cane."  Coleridge's  conversation  was  so  far  that  of  a  poet 
that  its  course  obeyed  the  impulse  of  any  casual  incident  or 
allusion.  The  sight  of  a  militiaman  is  recorded  to  have 
brought  him  to  the  fall  of  Napoleon  by  way  of  the  Peninsu 
lar  War,  and  now  the  aspect  of  a  Unitarian  minister  led  him 
to  declaim  against  Unitarianism.  One  of  his  remarks,  how 
ever,  was  worthy  to  have  found  its  way  into  "  Table-Talk." 
"I  have  known  ten  persons  who  loved  the  good  for  one 
person  who  loved  the  true  ;  but  it  is  a  far  greater  virtue  to 
love  the  true  for  itself  alone,  than  to  love  the  good  for  itself 
alone." 

Immediately  after  his  interview  with  Coleridge  Emerson 
repaired  to  Scotland,  passing,  as  an  allusion  in  "  Nature  " 
shows,  by  way  of  York.  He  was  now  to  meet  one  who 
fully  complied  with  Coleridge's  standard,  if  indeed  Emerson 
was  right,  as  assuredly  he  was,  in  finding  the  secret  of  Car- 
lyle's  superiority  "  in  his  commanding  sense  of  justice,  and 
incessant  demand  for  sincerity."  When  (Aug.  26th)  he 
alighted  at  Craigenputtock  and  met  Carlyle,  whose  address 
he  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  discovering,  he  "  found  him 
one  of  the  most  simple  and  frank  of  men,  and  became  ac 
quainted  with  him  at  once.  WTe  walked  over  several  miles 
of  hills,  and  talked  upon  all  the  great  questions  that  interest 
us  most."  "  That  man,"  Carlyle  said  to  Lord  Houghton, 
"  came  to  see  me  ;  I  don't  know  what  brought  him,  and  we 
kept  him  one  night,  and  then  he  left  us.  I  saw  him  go  up 
the  hill.  I  didn't  go  with  him  to  see  him  descend.  I  pre 
ferred  to  watch  him  mount  and  vanish  like  an  angel."  Most 
fortunate  it  was  for  them  both  that  their  meeting  lasted  so 
long  and  no  longer,  that  there  was  time  to  disclose  the  gen 
eral  unity  of  spirit  and  identity  of  aspiration,  and  not  time 
enough  for  the  discovery  of  the  utter  antithesis  of  tempera 
ment,  and  the  innumerable  discrepancies  in  points  of  detail. 
They  parted,  each  believing  the  other  intellectually  much 
nearer  than  he  really  was  :  and  this  belief  fostered  a  sym 
pathy  which,  by  the  time  that  their  differences  became  un 
deniably  manifest,  had  grown  too  strong  and  habitual  to  be 


EMERSON.  21 

•eriously  disturbed  by  them.  Carlyle's  genius,  in  fact,  had 
not  then  fully  received  its  epic  and  dramatic  bent ;  and  he 
was  still  much  under  the  influence  of  metaphysical  ideas 
borrowed  from  Germany.  The  full  report  of  their  conver 
sation  is  not  preserved,  but  if  in  comparing  notes  they  be 
gan  with  their  fundamental  beliefs,  they  would  travel  far 
before  they  arrived  at  their  points  of  disagreement.  Each 
was  a  Pantheist,  seeing  in  the  universe  a  living  organism, 
not  something  made  by  an  external  craftsman.  Each  was  a 
Transcendentalist,  believing  in  necessary  ideas  independent 
of  experience.  Each  passionately  asserted  a  Law  of  Right, 
independent  of  utility  or  expediency.  By  the  time  that 
these  points  of  contact  had  been  thoroughly  established,  it 
may  have  been  in  every  sense  time  for  Emerson  to  go. 
Some  genuine  Carlyleana  came  out  notwithstanding.  Mira- 
beau  should  be  a  hero.  Gibbon  was  the  splendid  bridge 
from  the  old  world  to  the  new.  The  great  booksellers  had 
paid  such  incredible  sums  for  puffery  that  they  were  all  on 
the  verge  of  bankruptcy.  Carlyle  had  matched  his  wits 
against  his  pig's,  with  humiliating  results.  An  unfinished 
bit  of  road  was  "  the  grave  of  the  last  sixpence."  Not  the 
least  remarkable  feature  in  the  interview  was  the  perfectly 
equal  footing  of  him  whose  genius  was  acknowledged  at 
least  by  his  visitor,  and  the  thinker  as  yet  entirely  unknown 
to  fame.  Emerson  had  made  a  long  pilgrimage  to  see  Car 
lyle.  Carlyle  could  not  have  been  expected  to  go  a  step  out 
of  his  way  to  see  Emerson.  It  might  have  seemed  inevit 
able  that  they  should  meet  as  disciple  and  master,  but  it  was 
not  so.  They  associated  without  embarrassment  on  the  one 
side,  or  assumption  on  the  other,  each  feeling  the  essential 
point  to  be  not  what  a  man  achieved,  but  what  he  was. 

Emerson's  impressions  of  Carlyle  were  first  communicated 
to  a  young  Scotchman,  destined  to  eminence  as  a  journalist 
and  a  man  of  letters,  but  who  will  perhaps  be  even  longer 
remembered  as  the  first  European  who  recognized  a  light  of 
the  age  in  the  American  stranger.  Emerson  had  come  to 
Edinburgh  with  an  introduction  from  Bowring  to  Dr.  John 
Gairdner,  a  friend  of  Mi\  Alexander  Ireland,  "  who,  luckily 
for  me,"  says  Mr.  Ireland,  "  was  so  much  engaged  in  pro- 


22  LIFE   OP 

fessional  duties  that  lie  was  unable  to  spare  a  few  hours  to 
do  the  honors  of  the  Scottish  metropolis,"  so  his  bishopric 
was  taken  by  another,  "  and  thus  I  became,"  says  Mr.  Ire 
land,  "  an  entertainer  of  angels  unawares."  Never  before 
had  Mr.  Ireland  "  met  with  any  one  of  so  fine  and  varied  a 
culture,  and  with  such  frank  sincerity  of  speech.  A  refined 
and  delicate  courtesy,  a  kind  of  mental  hospitality,  so  to 
speak — the  like  of  which,  or  anything  approaching  to  which, 
I  have  never  encountered — seemed  to  be  a  part  of  his  very 
nature,  and  inseparable  from  his  daily  walk  and  conversa 
tion."  The  impression  was  deepened  when,  on  August 
18th,  Mr.  Ireland  heard  him  preach  in  the  Unitarian 
church,  and  remarked  the  effect  produced  notwithstanding 
the  absence  of  all  oratorical  effort.  "  Not  long  before  this 
I  had  listened  to  a  wonderful  sermon  by  Dr.  Chalmers, 
whose  force  and  energy  and  vehement  eloquence  carried  for 
the  moment  all  before  them.  But  I  must  confess  that  the 
pregnant  thoughts  and  serene  self-possession  of  the  young 
Boston  minister  had  a  greater  charm  for  me  than  all  the 
rhetorical  splendors  of  Chalmers."  In  the  intervals  of 
sight-seeing  Emerson  discoursed  of  life  and  literature,  of 
Coleridge  and  Goethe,  Landor  and  Channing  and  Mon 
taigne  ;  and  Mr.  Ireland's  enthusiasm  found  vent  in  memor 
anda,  less  of  what  lie  had  heard  than  of  the  anticipations 
for  Emerson's  future  with  which  Emerson's  discourse  had 
inspired  him.  "  They  might  at  that  time  have  sounded  un 
duly  inflated,  but  his  subsequent  career  may  be  said  to  have 
rendered  them  almost  tame  and  inadequate."  Emerson  on 
his  part  was  so  interested  in  his  new  friend  as  to  send  him 
accounts — most  interesting  from  their  freshness  and  unpre- 
meditation — of  his  visits  to  Carlyle  and  Wordsworth,  both 
of  whom  he  sought  on  his  way  to  Liverpool.  Of  Words 
worth,  whom  he  saw  on  August  25th,  he  says  with  gentle 
sarcasm  :  "  H«  was  so  benevolently  anxious  to  impress  upon 
me  my  social  duties  as  an  American  citizen,  that  he  accom 
panied  me  near  a  mile  from  his  house,  talking  vehemently, 
and  ever  and  anon  stopping  short  to  imprint  his  words."  It 
appears,  however,  from  the  fuller  report  in  "  English 
Traits,"  that  Wordsworth  said  many  wise  things  about 


EMER8OST.  28 

America,  one  among  others  which  long  seemed  a  paradox, 
that  Americans  needed  a  civil  war  to  teach  the  necessity  of 
knitting  the  social  ties  stronger.  He  solemnized  Goethe's 
birthday  by  vituperating  "  Wilhelm  Meister  "  :  his  criticism 
is  one  of  the  most  curious  examples  extant  of  the  inability 
of  the  merely  ethical  temper  to  enter  into  the  artist's  sym 
pathetic  observation  of  life.  He  had  relieved  his  mind  by 
throwing  the  book  across  the  room,  and,  notwithstanding 
his  promise  to  Emerson,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  he  ever 
picked  it  up  again.  The  moment  was  certainly  unpropitious 
for  a  return  to  the  charge.  Wordsworth's  eyes  were 
grievously  inflamed,  and  his  physiognomy  was  disfigured  by 
green  goggles.  Carlyle  he  thought  sometimes  insane,  but 
this  was  probably  merely  a  second-hand  opinion.  He  pre 
ferred  Lucretius  to  Virgil ;  and  yet  Virgil  was  almost  the 
only  poet  to  whom  he  paid  the  compliment  of  translation. 
That  Wordsworth  should  recite  his  own  poetry  was  inevit 
able,  and  at  first  Emerson  was  "  near  to  laugh.  But  recol 
lecting  that  I  had  come  thus  far  to  see  a  poet,  and  that  he 
was  chanting  poems  to  me,  I  saw  that  he  was  right  and  I 
was  wrong,  and  gladly  gave  myself  up  to  hear."  On  the 
whole  Wordsworth  "  made  the  impression  of  a  narrow  and 
very  English  mind  ;  of  one  who  paid  for  his  rare  elevation 
by  general  lameness  and  conformity.  Off  his  own  beat,  his 
opinions  were  of  no  value."  But  on  his  beat  he  was  pro 
found  and  inspiring,  as  when  he  told  his  visitor  that  "  what 
ever  was  didactic  might  perish  quickly,  bat  whatever  com 
bined  a  truth  with  an  affection  was  A:rr]/j.a  £c  dec}  good  to-day 
and  good  for  ever." 

At  Liverpool,  Emerson  spent  nine  days  weather  bound, 
but  solaced  by  the  company  of  Jacob  Perkh>«.  the  inventor 
of  the  steam  gun,  who  prophesied  that  the  o^ean  would  be 
navigated  by  merchant  steamers,  "  but  there  i,«  a  great  deal 
to  be  done  first."  Within  five  years,  however,  the  first 
steam-ship  crossed  the  Atlantic.  Emerson's  voyage  in  a 
sailing  packet  occupied  one  month  and  five  days.  He  had 
time  to  sum  up  the  results  of  his  visit  to  Europe,  /^d  ques 
tion  himself  what  manner  of  man  Ii3  was  taking1  Irnck  to 
America.  His  travel  had  been  of  the  MgWt  value  in  him, 


24  LIFE   OF 

more  than  he  quite  knew.  Not  only  had  his  views  ex 
panded  and  his  mind  imbibed  new  ideas,  but  he  had  profited 
by  detachment  from  the  concerns  of  a  limited  community 
and  an  isolated  church.  Though  crude  in  form,  his  thoughts 
committed  to  paper  on  shipboard  have  a  largeness  and  lib 
erty  not  attained  by  him  before.  He  also  began  to  feel 
dimly  that  he  might  have  a  message  to  deliver  to  Europe  as 
well  as  to  America.  The  wise  man,  coming  to  teach,  often 
remains  to  learn  ;  but  sometimes  the  case  is  reversed,  and 
go  in  a  certain  degree  it  was  with  Emerson.  "  The  great 
men  of  England,"  he  wrote,  "  are  singularly  ignorant  of  re 
ligion."  This  dictum  would  have  astonished  Wordsworth 
and  Coleridge.  Swedenborg  met  in  the  other  world  with 
certain  individuals  who  seemed  to  themselves  comely  men, 
"  but  to  the  angels  they  appeared  like  dead  horses." 

Upon  arriving  in  America,  Emerson  went  to  live  with  his 
mother  at  Newton,  near  Boston,  and  immediately  found 
himself  largely  in  request  both  as  preacher  and  lecturer. 
Disencumbered  of  every  special  tie,  the  independence  of  his 
position  corresponded  to  the  enlargement  of  his  views;  he 
could  speak  to  his  former  flock  like  one  emancipated. 

"  Man  begins  to  hear  a  voice  that  fills  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,  saying  that  God  is  within  him ;  that  there  is  the  celestial 
host.  I  find  this  amazing  revelation  of  my  immediate  relation  to 
God,  a  solution  of  all  the  doubts  that  oppressed  me.  I  recognize 
the  distinction  of  the  outer  and  the  inner  self;  the  double  con 
sciousness  that  within  this  erring,  passionate,  mortal  self  sits  a 
supreme,  calm,  immortal  mind,  whose  powers  I  do  not  know;  but 
it  is  stronger  than  I ;  it  is  wiser  than  I ;  it  never  approved  me  in 
any  wrong ;  I  seek  counsel  of  it  in  my  doubts ;  I  repair  to  it  in 
my  dangers  ;  I  pray  to  it  iu  my  undertakings.  It  seems  to  me 
the  face  which  the  Creator  uncovers  to  his  child." 

He  concluded  that  this  "  increased  clearness  of  the 
spiritual  sight"  must  put  an  end  to  all  that  was  "technical, 
allegorical,  parabolical  "  in  religious  teaching,  thus  raising 
up  fresh  obstacles  to  his  return  to  the  regular  groove  of  his 
profession.  These  were  increased  when  the  Quakers  of  New 


EMEKSOX.  25 

B<  dford,     with    whose    spirituality    he    felt    the    deepest 
sympathy,  imbued  him  with  a  dislike,  not  merely  toset  forms 
of  prayer,  but  to  public  prayer  of  any  kind  without  prompt 
ing  from  on  high.      His  views  have  been  much  misrepre 
sented,    but    he    himself  said,  "  As  well  might  a  child  live 
without    its  mother's  milk  as  a  soul  without  prayer."     His 
position,  however,   was  evidently  inconsistent  with  a  stated 
ministerial    charge,    and,    after  the  oifer  of  a  pastorate  at 
New  Bedford  had  struck  upon  this  rock,  Emerson,  though 
still  not  refusing  to  preach,  and,  in  fact,  preaching  regularly 
for  some  years  to  a  small  congregation,  seems  to  have  es 
teemed    himself  a  layman.     He  was  now  beginning  to  find 
his    proper  field  in  the  lyceum  and  lecture-hall.     His  first 
lectures    were  scientific.      Without    any  profound  acquaint 
ance    with  science,  he    knew  enough  to  impart  elementary 
information     to    an    average    audience.      In    dealing  with     \ 
higher  matters  he  showed  how  immensely  the  man  of  science      ) 
gains  by  being  also  a  man  of  thought.     The  dee'per  a  man's    / 
insight    into    the    spiritual    laws,    the    more   intense  will  ( 
be    his   love    of  the  works  of  nature.      It  is  the  wonderful  f 
charm    of    external    nature    that  man  stands  in  a  central/ 
connection   with  it  all.'*     This  fitted  well  with  the  doctrine! 
of  evolution,    which,    without  endeavoring  to  explain  the, 
process,    he    assumed    to  be  sufficiently  established  by  the 
anatomical  evidence  of  gradual  development.      "  Man  is  no 
upstart  in  the  creation.      His  limbs  are  only  a  more  exqui 
site  organization — say  rather  the  finish — of  the  rudimental 
forms  that  have  been  already  sweeping  the  sea  and  creeping 
in  the  mud.     The  brother  of  his  hand  is  even  now  cleaving 
the    Arctic  Sea  in  the  fin  of  the  whale,   and  innumerable 
ages    since    was    pawing    the    marsh  in  the  flipper  of  the 
saurian."     A  view  afterwards  condensed  into  his  memorable 
couplet — 

"  Striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 

Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form." 

But  he  was  far  from  regarding  the  progress  of  development 
as  the  result  of  a  chance  collision  of  atoms,  or  a  blind 
struggle  for  existence.  With  clear  good  sense  he  pointed 


26  LIFE  OF 

out  the  indications  of  self-conscious  forethought  in  the  uni. 
verse — "  the  preparation  made  for  a  man  in  the  slow  and 
secular  changes  and  melioration  of  the  surface  of  the  planet ; 
his  house  built,  the  grounds  laid  out,  the  cellar  stocked." 

Emerson  soon  became  engaged,  and  it  was  necessary  to 
look  out  for  a  house  of  his  own.  He  "  dodged  the  doom  of 
building,  and  bought  the  Coolidge  house  in  Concord.  It  is 
a  mean  place."  It  does  not  appear  mean  in  the  view  pub 
lished  by  Mr.  Sanborn,  in  Scribner's  Monthly,  which  justi 
fies  his  description  of  it  "  as  a  modest,  homelike,  comfort 
able  residence" — not  unlike,  it  may  be  added,  except  for  its 
wooden  material,  the  half-marine,  half-rustic  villa  that  may 
be  espied  hiding  itself  in  a  plantation  near  many  a  quiet 
English  watering-place.  The  scenery  of  the  neighborhood, 
though  Hot  striking,  sufficed  a  poet  of  Wordsworthian 
sympathies  who  had  sat  down  in  the  shadow  of  Etna  with 
out  ecstasy,  and  mainly  sought  to  glean  from  Nature  "the 
harvest  of  a  quiet  eye."  "  It  might  seem,"  he  said,  "  to 
bright  eyes  a  dull  rabbit-warren,"  but  it  gave  him  what  he 
wanted.  Hawthorne,  coming  afterwards  to  dwell  in  the 
old  manse  of  Dr.  Ripley  where  Emerson  had  dwelt  before 
him,  has  depicted  the  landscape  from  several  different 
points  of  views  and  notwithstanding  his  wrath  at  the  muddi- 
ness  of  the  slow  river,  "too  lazy  to  keep  itself  clean,"  the 
general  impression  is  eminently  pleasing.  He  paints  the 
semicircular  sweep  of  the  stream,  looking  under  certain  as 
pects,  for  all  its  impurity,  like  a  strip  of  sky  let  into  the 
earth ;  the  broad,  peaceful  meadows,  of  which  it  was  the 
central  line,  the  bordering  ridges  swelling  forward  or  slop 
ing  gradually  back,  with  a  white  village  here  and  there 
embowered  in  its  wood-lands — Dutch  nature  spiritualized  by 
Western  influences.  Not  far  away  was  Walden  Pond,  the 
sylvan  lake  more  indissolubly  associated  with  Thor«au's 
name  than  even  with  Emerson's,  often  as  he 

"  Smote  the  lake  to  please  his  eye 
With  the  beryl  beam  of  the  broken  wave, 
And  flung  in  pebbles,  well  to  hear 
The  moment's  music  which  they  gave." 


EMERSOtf.  27 

It  was  natural,  too,  that  he  should  feel  as  a  patriot  towardi 
Concord,  remembering  his  descent  from  its  founder,  and 
that  his  fellow-townsmen  (who  also  conferred  upon  him  the 
dignity  of  1  <-g- reeve)  should  call  upon  him  for  an  address  on 
their  second  centennial  anniversary,  September,  1835. 
With  simple  but  striking  eloquence  he  discoursed  of  the 
heroic  passages  of  the  history  of  Concord,  especially  the 
hardships  and  renunciations  of  the  original  settlers. 
"  Many  A\°,re  their  wants,  but  more  their  privileges.  The 
light  struggled  in  through  windows  of  oiled  paper,  but  they 
read  the  Word  of  God  by  it.  They  were  fain  to  make  use 
of  their  knees  for  a  table,  but  their  limbs  were  their  own. 
Their  religion  was  sweetness  and  peace  amidst  toil  and 
tears."  Coming  down  to  later  times,  he  could  tell  his  audi 
ence  how  "  the  first  organized  resistance  to  the  British 
arms  was  made  about  half  a  mile  from  this  spot ; "  how  he 
himself  had  found  within  the  last  few  days  a  narrative  of 
the  fight  in  the  handwriting  of  his  grandfather,  then  pastor, 
and  himself  a  martyr  to  the  cause  of  independence,  and  an 
entry  in  an  almanac  in  that  ancestor's  handwriting  :  "  This 
monih  remarkable  for  the  greatest  events  of  the  present 
age."  Speaking  of  his  researches  among  the  town  records, 
"which  must  ever  be  the  fountains  of  all  just  information 
respecting  your  character  and  customs,"  he  could  say : 
"  They  exhibit  a  pleasing  picture  of  a  community  almost 
exclusively  agricultural,  where  no  man  has  much  time  for 
words  in  his  search  after  things,  of  a  community  of  great 
simplicity  of  manners,  and  of  a  manifest  love  of  justice. 
These  soiled  and  musty  books  are  luminous  and  electric 
within.  The  old  town-clerks  did  not  spell  very  correctly, 
but  they  contrive  to  make  pretty  intelligible  the  will  of  a  free 
and  just  community.'* 

On  the  next  anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  Lexington, 
April  19,  1836,  the  monument  erected  to  commemorate  the 
birth  of  American  independence  wras  inaugurated  by  verses 
from  the  pen  of  Emerson,  destined,  like  the  shot  he  cele 
brates,  to  be  "  heard  round  the  world"-— 


28  LIFE  OP 

11  By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 

Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 
Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world* 

The  foe  long  since  in  silence  slept ; 

Alike  the  conqueror  silent  sleeps; 
And  Time  the  ruined  bridge  has  swept 

Down  the  dark  stream  which  seaward  creeps, 

On  this  green  bank,  by  this  soft  stream, 

We  set  to-day  a  votive  stone  ; 
That  memory  may  their  deed  redeem, 

When,  like  our  sires,  our  sons  are  gone. 

Spirit,  that  made  those  heroes  dare 

To  die,  and  leave  their  children  free, 
Bid  Time  and  Nature  gently  spare, 

The  shaft  we  raise  to  them  and  thee." 

Two   days   after  Emerson's  Concord  oration,  he  "  drove 
over  to  Plymouth,  and  was  married."     His  wife — Lydia,  or 
as  he  chose  to  call  her  Lidian,  Jackson,  sister  to  Dr.  Charles 
Jackson,    of  anaesthetic   fame — lias  made  his    renown  her 
obscurity.     Her  modest   figure  occasionally  flits  across  the 
background    of  his  public  career,  and  the  few  letters  from 
him   to  her   which   liave  found  their  way  into  print  reveal 
both  affection  and  the  assurance  of  sympathy.     "  The  soul 
of  faith,"  was  the  character  he  gave  her.    Emerson's  main  in 
tellectual  occupation  was  the  slow  composition  of  his  epoch- 
making  tract  on  Nature  ;  but  he  also  found  time  for  public 
discourse.     He  gave  five  biographical  lectures  at  Boston  on 
Michael  Angelo,   Luther,  Milton,  George  Fox,  and  Burke. 
Those  on   Michael    Angelo    and  Milton  are  extant  in  The 
North    American    Review.     Emerson  himself  thought  them 
unworthy  of  preservation,  and  he  was  right.      They  were 
well    adapted    for    their  immediate    purpose,  but    have  no 
special  originality  or  force.     Ten  lectures  on  English  litera 
ture   delivered  in  the  Masonic  Temple,   Boston,  have  not 


EMERSON.  29 

been  printed,  but  are  fully  analyzed  by  Mr,  Cabot.  Emer 
son's  connection  with  the  pulpit  was  resumed  for  a  time : 
for  three  years  he  preached  regularly  to  a  small  flock  at 
East  Lexington — a  work  of  necessity  on  the  showing  of  one 
of  the  sheep,  who  declared  that  the  simple  people  labored 
under  a  positive  incapacity  of  understanding  any  one  but 
Mr.  Emerson.  And,  in  fact,  the  charge  of  obscurity  so 
frequently  brought  against  Emerson  is  exceedingly  unjust  as 
respects  individual  sentences.  His  thought  is  transparent 
and  almost  chillingly  clear,  "  he  casts  forth  his  ice  like 
morsels."  The  obscurity,  when  there  is  any,  arises  from 
the  want  of  logical  sequence  in  his  argument,  and  of  tone 
and  keeping  amid  the  mass  of  glittering  beauties,  not  duly 
subordinate  to  the  general  impression. 

Emerson  was  now  called  upon  to  deal  editorially  with  a 
Prophet.  Admiration  for  Carlyle  had  made  him  subscribe 
to  Fraser  as  long  as  "  Sartor  Resartus  "  appeared  in  it,  and 
his  critical  faculty  was  thus  subjected  to  the  severest  test 
to  which  such  faculty  can  be  exposed  in  the  summons  to 
recognize  an  entirely  new  order  of  excellence.  To  this  he 
failed  to  respond.  It  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon,  con 
tinually  verified,  that  minds  of  unusual  subtlety  and  pene 
tration  seem  to  labor  under  an  incapacity  for  appreciating 
the  sublime.  The  instrument  of  such  minds  often  seems 
rather  the  spectroscope  which  dissects  a  single  beam  in  a 
darkened  room  than  the  telescope  which  ranges  infinite 
space  from  the  summit  of  the  mountain.  The  intellect 
which  finds  thoughts  too  deep  for  tears  in  the  flower  re 
sponds  with  no  thrill  of  agitation  to  the  tempest ;  the  per 
ception  which  detects  the  microscopic  though  real  beauties 
of  a  Clough  cannot  see  the  splendor  which  invests  heaven 
and  earth  in  the  verse  of  a  Shelley.  Emerson's  was  such  a 
mind  :  the  sublimity  of  "  Sartor  "  was  lost  upon  him  ;  and 
that  other  defect  in  his  mental  constitution,  which,  while  al 
lowing  him  a  vein  of  epigrammatic  humor,  left  him  insen 
sible  to  the  glorious  mirth  of  an  Aristophanes  or  a  Dickens, 
abolished  for  him  the  second  element  of  greatness  in  "  Sar 
tor,"  its  humor.  Its  philosophical  truth  remained,  and  this 
Emerson  appreciated,  but  the  form  and  style  were  sore  trials 


30  LIFE  OF 

to  him.  "  O  Carlyle!"  he  exclaims  in  his  diary,  "the 
merit  of  glass  is  not  to  be  seen,  but  to  be  seen  through ;  but 
every  crystal  and  lamina  of  the  Carlyle  glass  shows."  A 
sound  criticism,  if  the  purpose  of  "  Sartor  "  had  been  to 
make  things  plain  to  the  meanest  capacity.  Men  of  poeti 
cal  gifts  like  Emerson  and  Carlyle  are  on  safer  ground  when 
they  admire  than  when  they  blame :  as  with  Swedenborg's 
angels,  it  is  only  when  they  affirm  a  truth  that  their  wands 
blossom  in  their  hands.  As  the  importer  of  the  only  copy 
in  America,  he  nevertheless  stood  towards  the  book  in  loco 
parentis ;  and  when  Dr.  Le  Baron  Russell  defrayed  the  cost 
of  the  first  transatlantic  edition,  Emerson  contributed  the 
preface.  His  introduction  was  deemed  by  the  enthusiastic 
timid  and  superfluously  apologetic  ;  but  he  felt  that  he  was 
breaking  his  own  rule  u  to  do  nothing  which  I  cannot  do 
with  my  whole  heart."  Soon  The  North  American  Review 
came  to  the  rescue,  and  Emerson  could  report  to  Carlyle, 
"  I  have  quite  lost  my  plume  as  your  harbinger." 

After  editing  "  Sartor"  Emerson  turned  seriously  to  the 
publication  of  his  own  gospel.  His  tract  on  u  Nature,"  the 
most  intense  and  quintessential  of  his  writings,  and  the  first 
in  which  he  came  forward  teaching  as  one  having  authority, 
seems  to  have  been  commenced  even  before  he  took  up  his 
residence  at  Concord,  but  was  not  completed  till  August, 
1836.  It  was  published  in  the  following  month,  without  at 
first  attracting  much  attention.  It  proved,  however,  a  seed 
implanted  in  a  fissure  of  the  crumbling  New  England 
theology,  whose  unnoticed  expansion  had  force  enough  to 
shatter  the  whole  fabric.  By  its  conception — not  of  course 
original  with  Emerson  or  peculiar  to  him — of  external  Na 
ture  as  an  incarnation  of  the  Divine  Mind,  it  utterly  abol 
ished  most  of  the  controversies  which  had  agitated  the  in 
tellect  of  America,  and  in  particular  caught  up  the  philoso 
phy  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  that  masterpiece  of  earthly  rea 
soning,  into  a  heaven  of  which  Edwards  had  never  dreamed. 
The  rigid  despotism  of  an  extra-mundane  ruler  now  ap 
peared  the  free  agency  of  an  indwelling  power  :  and  simi 
larly,  without  infringing  a  single  moral  rule,  the  stiff 
morality  of  the  Unitarians  was  transfigured  and  glorified 


EMEBSON. 

until  it  hardly  knew  itself.  At  the  same  time  God  and 
Nature  were  by  no  means  confounded  ;  the  former  was  re« 
cognized  as  the  infinite  cause,  the  latter  as  the  infinite  effect : 
and  though  a  cause  without  an  effect  is  certainly  inconceiv 
able,  the  formal  duality  is  made  not  less  clear  than  the  sub 
stantial  unity.  Man  was  represented  as  the  intermediate 
phase  of  being,  tending  upwards  or  downwards,  according  as 
he  inclines  to  Divine  freedom  or  natural  necessity.  To 
quote  Mr.  Cabot's  analysis,  "  regarded  as  part  of  nature,  he 
is  the  victim  of  his  environment:  of  race,  temperament, 
sex,  climate,  organization.  But  man  is  not  simply  a  part  of 
nature,  not  mere  effect,  but,  potentially,  shares  the  cause. 
When  he  submits  his  will  to  the  Divine  inspiration,  he  be 
comes  a  creator  in  the  finite.  If  he  is  disobedient,  if  he 
would  be  something  in  himself,  he  finds  all  things  hostile 
and  incomprehensible.  As  a  man  is,  so  he  sees  and  so  he 
does.  When  we  persist  in  disobedience,  the  inward  ruin  is 
reflected  in  the  world  about  us.  When  we  yield  to  the  re 
medial  force  of  spirit,  then  evil  is  no  more  seen."  Evil, 
then,  may  be  regarded  as  the  price  man  pays  for  being 
above  Nature  ;  and  as  Emerson  could  not  deem  this  as  by 
any  means  too  high,  he  was  necessarily  an  optimist  to  th<? 
extent,  at  least,  of  maintaining  that,  much  as  we  suffer 
from  moral  evil,  we  should  be  worse  off  without  it.  With 
out  it  we  should  be  but  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  Nature  ; 
its  existence  is  a  proof  of  our  liberty,  which  involves  the 
liberty  to  rise  superior  to  it.  "  As  when  the  summer  comes 
from  the  south,  the  snowbanks  melt,  and  the  face  of  the 
earth  becomes  green  before  it,  so  shall  the  advancing  spirit 
create  its  ornaments  along  its  path,  and  carry  with  it  the 
beauty  it  visits,  and  the  song  which  enchants  it ;  it  shall 
draw  beautiful  faces,  and  warm  hearts,  and  wise  discourses, 
and  heroic  acts  around  its  way,  until  evil  is  no  more  seen." 
This  prophecy  was  confirmed  by  cogent  though  highly  poe 
tical  reasoning,  an  appeal  to  admitted  facts  showing  that 
Nature  and  Man  actually  were  in  sympathy.  "  When  a 
noble  act  is  done — perchance  in  a  scene  of  great  natural 
beauty  ;  when  Leonidas  and  his  three  hundred  martyrs  con 
sume  one  day  in  dying,  and  the  sun  and  the  moon  come 


32  LIFE  OF 

each  and  look  at  them  once  in  the  steep  defile  of  Thermopylae  ; 
when  Arnold  Winkelried,  in  the  high  Alps,  under  the 
shadow  of  the  avalanche,  gathers  in  his  side  a  sheaf  of  Aus 
trian  spears  to  break  the  line  for  his  comrades  :  are  not 
these  heroes  entitled  to  add  the  beauty  of  the  scene  to  the 
beauty  of  the  deed  ?  When  the  bark  of  Columbus  nears 
the  shore  of  America  ;  before  it,  the  beach  lined  with  sav 
ages  fleeing  out  of  all  their  huts  of  cane  ;  the  sea  behind, 
and  the  purple  mountains  of  the  Indian  Archipelago  around, 
can  we  separate  the  man  from  the  living  picture  ?  ...  In 
private  places,  among  sordid  objects,  an  act  of  truth  or 
heroism  seems  at  once  to  draw  to  itself  the  sky  as  its  temple, 
the  sun  as  its  candle.  Nature  stretcheth  out  her  arms  to 
embrace  man,  only  let  his  thoughts  be  of  equal  greatness. 
Willingly  does  she  follow  his  steps  with  the  rose  and  the 
violet,  and  bend  her  lines  of  grandeur  and  grace  to  the  dec 
oration  of  her  darling  child.  Only  let  his  thoughts  be  of 
equal  scope,  and  the  frame  will  suit  the  picture.  A  vir 
tuous  man  is  in  unison  with  her  works,  and  makes  the  cen 
tral  figure  of  the  visible  sphere."  Man,  then,  had  but  to 
place  himself  in  a  right  relation  with  God  and  Nature,  and 
the  inextricable  puzzles  of  liberty  and  necessity  would  be 
solved  of  themselves.  If  the  logical  connection  of  the 
treatise  was  not  always  very  close,  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  it  was  the  work  of  a  poet,  and  that  the  ideas  it  em 
bodied  were  for  the  most  part  so  exquisite  and  ennobling  as 
to  be  their  own  best  credentials.  The  most  fascinating  part 
of  the  little  book  was  the  alluring  delineation  of  natural 
beauty  ;  the  most  substantially  valuable,  the  resolute  asser 
tion  of  the  identity  of  natural  and  spiritual  law  ;  the  con 
vertibility  of  natural  and  spiritual  forces  ;  every  existence 
in  nature  the  counterpart  of  an  existence  in  the  world  of 
mind  ;  every  natural  truth  a  truth  also  in  human  life.  In  the 
pregnant  phrase  of  George  Herbert,  quoted  by  the  writer — 

"  Man  is  one  world,  and  hath 
Another  to  attend  him." 

NOTE  BY  AMERICAN  EDITOR.     "  Druinmonds"  Natural  Law  in 
the  Spiritual   World  inculcates  practically  and  with  characteris- 


EMERSON.  33 

A  certain  boisterous  zone  of  ocean  is  known  to  the  sea 
men  as  "  the  roaring  forties."  The  future  historian  of  this 
century  way  dwell  on  "  the  still  thirties,"  as  a  decade  more 
pregnant  with  intellectual  than  with  political  revolution. 
In  1830  occurred  the  great  debate  on  fixity  of  type  between 
Cuvier  and  Geoffrey  Saint  Hilaire,  which  Goethe  thought 
infinitely  more  important  than  the  Revolution  of  July.  In 
1831  Darwin  departed  on  his  eventful  voyage,  "  Sartor  Re- 
sartus"  was  written,  and  the  British  Association  founded. 
In  1835  appeared  the  epoch-making  works  of  Strauss  and 
Tocqueville  ;  statistics  first  assumed  the  dignity  of  a  science  ; 
and  the  names  of  Copernicus  and  Galileo  vanished  from  the 
Index  Expurgatorious.  In  March  of  the  same  year  Emer 
son  speaks  to  Carlyle  of  a  projected  journal  to  be  called  the 
Transcendentalism  The  christening  nevertheless,  Hiber- 
nically,  perhaps  mystically,  preceded  the  berth,  for  it  was 
not  until  September,  1836 — the  month  which  the  publica 
tion  of  "  Nature  "  would  alone  have  sealed  as  an  epoch. — 
that  Emerson,  Dr.  Hedge,  George  Ripley,  and  an  unnamed 
companion,  meeting  on  occasion  of  the  second  centennial 
anniversary  of  Harvard  College,  "  chanced  to  confer  on  the 
state  of  current  opinion  in  theology  and  philosophy,  which 
we  agreed  in  thinking  very  unsatisfactory."  The  upshot 
was  a  larger  meeting  of  some  dozen  "  like-minded  seekers," 
at  George  Ripley's  house  in  Boston,  followed  by  a  some 
what  larger  gathering  at  Emerson's  own,  to  which  others 
succeeded,  and  by  and  by  the  participants  got  the  name  of 
Transcendentalists.  How  they  came  by  it,  Dr.  Hedge,  our 
witness,  does  not  know ;  not,  he  apprehends,  on  the  ground 
of  any  special  acquaintance  with  Kant's  transcendental 

tic  illustrations  the  same  idea.  Who  can  tell  where  the  seed  of  a 
thought  was  first  sown.  Often  the  most  striking  and  apparently 
original  modern  thoughts  may  be  traced  to  Socrates  or  to  some 
writer  of  ancient  renown.  Did  Emerson  originate  this  idea  of  the 
identity  of  Natural  and  Spiritual  laws  or  forces,  or  did  he  imbibe 
it  from  the  Bible  ;  from  the  ancient  philosophers,  or  the  German 
savants  whom  he  read  with  keen  enjoyment,  and  consequent  aj> 
propriation  of  their  thought. 

3 


34  LIFE  OF 

philosophy,  seeing  that  no  one  knew  anything  about  it  ex 
cept  himself,  and  he  will  not  affirm  that  he  knew  enough 
for  a  dozen.  But  Kant's  name  must  have  been  heard  in 
New  England,  for  in  1833  Emerson  told  Wordsworth  that  all 
Boston  was  talking  about  Victor  Cousin,  which  brilliant 
Frenchman  had  undoubtedly  profited  by  his  opportunities  of 
studying  the  philosophy  of  Germany  when  he  happened  to 
be  imprisoned  in  that  country.  Mr.  Freeman  Clarke  gives 
another  name,  and  another  reason.  **  We  called  ourselves 
the  club  of  the  like-minded.  I  suppose  because  no  two  of 
us  thought  alike."  "  Or  rather,  we  may  say,"  adds  Mr. 
Cabot  with  justice,  "  because,  in  spite  of  all  differences  of 
opinion,  they  were  united  by  a  common  impatience  of 
routine  thinking."  In  any  case,  the  designation  of 
transcendentalist  was  not  one  to  be  ashamed  of.  "  The 
transcendental  philosophy,"  says  Frothingham,  "is  the 
philosophy  that  is  built  on  these  necessary  and  univer 
sal  principles,  the  primary  laws  of  mind,  which  are  the 
ground  of  absolute  truth."  Since  these  meetings  began  and 
ceased  the  special  dogma  of  Transcendentalism  proper,  the 
assertion  of  knowledge,  independent  of  experience,  has  been, 
one  may  say,  both  proved  and  disproved.  Observation, 
more  fruitful  of  result  than  speculation,  has,  by  the  study  of 
the  phenomena  of  heredity,  triumphantly  vindicated  the 
doctrine  of  innate  ideas  as  respects  the  individual,  while 
overthrowing  it  as  respects  the  race.  It  is  certain  that  the 
human  mind  at  berth  is  by  no  means  a  sheet  of  blank  pa 
per  ;  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  impressions  which  it 
brings  into  the  world  are  the  result  of  the  accumulated  ex 
periences  of  its  progenitors.  But  though  the  discovery 
might  have  silenced  the  controversialists  on  both  sides  in 
Emerson's  time,  it  would  not  have  quelled  the  controversy. 
The  dispute  was  only  one  item  among  large  issues.  Was 
utility  the  measure  of  right?  Could  truth  be  apprehended 
by  intuition  ?  Could  religion  be  identified  with  the  letter 
of  a  book,  or  proved  by  a  miracle?  The  affirmative  and 
negative  of  any  of  these  propositions  seemed  a  priori, 
equally  rational ;  if  Emerson  and  his  followers  speedily  got 
8,  bad  jame  with  sober  people,  it  was  not  that  their  side  of 


EMERSON,  35 

the  question  was  intrinsically  unreasonable,  but  because  it 
was  naturally  congenial  to  the  more  imaginative,  and  there 
fore  the  more  impulsive  and  refractory.  "Your  accom 
plished  friend,"  said  a  denizen  of  Brook  Farm,  "  would  hoe 
corn  all  Sunday  if  I  would  let  him,  but  all  Massachusetts 
could  riot  make  him  do  it  on  Monday."  Hence  no  school  of 
thought  was  less  sympathetic  with  Emersonianism  than 
that  in  whose  bosom  it  had  been  developed  into  a  creed— 
the  Unitarian.  "  The  Unitarians  of  New  England,"  says 
Frothingham,  "  good  scholars,  careful  reasoners,  clear  and 
exact  thinkers,  accomplished  men  of  letters,  humane  in  sen 
timent,  sincere  in  moral  intention,  belonged,  of  course,  with 
individual  exceptions  [such  as  ,Channing],  to  the  class 
which  looked  without  for  knowledge,  rather  than  within  for 
inspiration."  It  was  to  this  habit  of  mind,  and  not  to  any 
theological  differences,  that  Channing  referred  when  he  said, 
"  I  am  little  of  a  Unitarian."  Unitarianism,  in  fact,  had 
worked  itself  out,  as  Romanism  and  Calvinism  had  done  be 
fore  it.  It  had  brought  Christianity  to  such  perfection  that,  as 
an  admirer  of  Paley  said,  "it  could  be  written  out  at  examina 
tions."  And  now  the  restless  .spirit  of  man,  discontented 
with  even  this  great  result,  was  protesting  that  here  it  could 
find  no  abiding  tabernacle. 

In  the  winter  of  1836  Emerson  followed  up  his  discourse 
on  Nature  by  a  course  of  twelve  lectures  on  "  The  Philos 
ophy  of  History,"  a  considerable  portion  of  which  event 
ually  became  embodied  in  his  Essays.  From  the  abstract 
preserved  by  Mr.  Cabot,  the  connection  with  history  would 
seem  to  have  been  but  remote ;  nor  is  the  connection  of  the 
lectures  among  themselves  very  apparent.  The  most  im 
portant  was  that  on  Religion,  which  dwelt  forcibly  on  "  the 
great  fact  of  the  unity  of  the  mind  in  all  individual  men." 
This,  said  Emerson,  we  learn  from  the  sense  of  duty.  "  I 
seek  my  satisfaction  at  my  neighbor's  cost,  and  I  find  that 
he  has  an  advocate  in  my  own  breast,  interfering  with  my 
private  action,  and  persuading  me  to  act,  not  for  his  advant 
age  or  for  that  of  all  others,  for  it  has  no  reference  to  per 
sons,  but  in  obedience  to  the  dictate  of  the  general  mind. 
Virtue  is  this  obedience,  and  religion  is  the  accompanying 


86  LIFE  OF 

emotion,  the  thrill  at  the  presence  of  the  universal  soul." 
He  went  on  to  say  that  the  attempt  to  embody  this  emotion 
in  an  outward  form  made  the  Church,  but  as  "  the  truest 
state  of  thought  rested  in  becomes  false,"  the  Church  was 
continually  lapsing  into  unbelief,  and  as  continually  being 
recovered  from  it  by  "  the  light  rekindling  in  some  obscure 
heart."  "  Only  a  new  Church  is  alive."  A  man  who  thus 
taught  need  not  have  wondered  that  his  "  one  doctrine,  the 
infinity  of  the  private  man,"  was  only  accepted  u  as  long  as 
I  call  the  lecture  Art,  or  Politics,  or  Literature,  or  the 
Household.  The  moment  I  call  it  Religion  people  are 
shocked,  though  it  be  only  the  application  of  the  same  truth 
which  they  receive  everywhere  else."  Every  Church  is 
sufficiently  alive  to  resent  being  told  that  it  is  dead  ;  and 
the  less  the  vitality  the  greater  the  resentment.  In  June, 
1837,  he  tried  the  experiment  of  preaching  in  the  pulpit  of 
his  friend,  Dr.  Farley,  "  a  sermon  precisely  like  one  of  his 
lectures  in  style."  "  After  returning  home,"  says  Dr. 
Farley,  "  I  found  Emerson  with  his  head  bowed  in  his 
hands,  which  were  resting  on  his  knees.  He  looked  up  and 
said,  '  Now  tell  me  honestly,  plainly,  just  what  you  think 
of  that  service.'  I  replied  that  before  he  was  half  through 
I  had  made  up  my  mind  that  it  was  the  last  time  he  should 
have  that  pulpit.  '  You  are  right,'  he  rejoined,  '  and  I 
thank  you.  On  my  part  before  I  was  half  through  I  felt 
out  of  place.' "  He  did  not  mean,  as  Mr.  Cabot  remarks, 
that  he  was  out  of  place  in  the  pulpit  when  he  could  find  a 
sympathising  congregation,  for  ten  years  had  yet  to  pass  ere 
he  should  preach  his  last  sermon.  But  the  pulpit  was  no 
longer  to  be  his  platform,  the  Lyceum  had  definitely  gained 
what  the  Church  had  lost ;  and  it  must  be  added  that  in 
this  particular  aspect  the  whole  spiritual  tendency  of  the 
age  was  for  the  moment  incarnated  in  Emerson.  Different 
indeed  was  the  reception  which  Literature,  as  impersonated 
in  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society,  gave  him  on  his  next  pub 
lic  appearance,  the  delivery  of  his  oration  on  "  Man  Think 
ing,  or  the  American  Scholar,"  August  31,  1837.  "It 
was,"  says  Mr.  Lowell,  "  an  event  without  any  former  par 
allel  in  our  literary  annals,  a  scene  to  be  always  treasured 


EMEE8ON.  37 

in  the  memory  for  its  picturesqueness  and  its  inspiration. 
What  crowded  and  breathless  aisles,  what  windows  cluster 
ing  with  eager  heads,  what  enthusiasm  of  approval,  what 
grim  silence  of  foregone  dissent!"  This  great  effect  was 
no  doubt  partly  due  to  the  Fourth  of  July  quality  pervading 
the  oration,  which  Dr.  Holmes  calls  "  our  intellectual  Dec 
laration  of  Independence."  "  We  were,"  says  Mr.  Lowell, 
"  still  socially  and  intellectually  moored  to  English  thought 
till  Emerson  cut  the  cable  and  gave  us  a  chance  at  the  dan 
gers  and  glories  of  blue  water."  Americans  felt  inspirited 
and  flattered  by  the  assurance  the  discourse  breathed  that 
their  literature  need  no  longer  be  imitative  ;  that  they  need 
but  rise  to  the  level  of  their  opportunities  and  duties  as  a 
free  people,  and  their  literature  would  rise  along  with  them. 
The  excellent  counsel  to  the  individual  student,  bursting 
forth  in  epigrammatic  flashes  which  seemed  paradoxes  until 
reflection  proved  them  aphorisms,  also  told  for  much. 
("  Books  are  for  the  scholar's  idle  times."  "  Action  is  with 
the  scholar  subordinate,  but  it  is  essential."  "  The  scholar 
is  one  who  raises  himself  from  private  considerations."  "  He, 
and  he  only,  knows  the  world.")  But  these  things  were 
only  subsidiary  to  the  mam  purpose  of  the  discourse,  the 
proclamation  of  the  oneness  of  mankind,  and  the  omnipres 
ence  of  God.  "  The  near  explains  the  far.  The  drop  is  a 
small  ocean.  A  man  is  related  to  all  nature.  This  percep 
tion  of  the  worth  of  the  vulgar  is  fruitful  in  discoveries. 
Let  me  see  every  trifle  bristling  with  the  polarity  that 
ranges  it  instantly  as  an  eternal  law  ;  and  the  shop,  the 
plough,  and  the  ledger  referred  to  the  like  cause  by  which 
light  undulates  and  poets  sing;  and  the  world  lies  no  longer 
a  dull  miscellany  and  lumber-room,  but  has  form  and  order  ; 
there  is  no  trifle,  there  is  no  puzzle ;  but  one  design  unites 
and  animates  the  farthest  pinnacle  and  the  lowest  trench.  .  .  . 
The  dread  of  man  and  the  love  of  man  shall  be  a  wall  of 
defence  and  a  wreath  of  joy  around  all.  A  nation  of  men 
will  for  the  first  time  exist,  because  each  believes  himself 
inspired  by  the  Divine  Soul  which  also  inspires  all  men." 

In  addressing  his  fellow-students,  Emerson  spoke  urbis 
but  when  his  speech  was  directed  orbi,  he  proved  that  this 


88  LIFE  OF 

Faith  in  the  inspiration  of  all  men  by  the  Divine  Soul  was 
no  idle  figure  of  speech  with  him.  He  deemed  that  Ideal 
ism  might  be  preached  with  good  hope  of  acceptance  even 
to  bankers.  In  a  passage  from  a  subsequent  lecture  enti 
tled  "  Transcendentalism,"  recalling  and  rivaling  the  finest 
pages  of  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  he  says  : 

"  How  easy  it  is  to  show  the  materialist  that  he  also  is  a  phan 
tom  walking  and  working  amid  phantoms,  and  that  he  need  only 
ask  a  question  or  two  beyond  his  daily  questions  to  find  his  solid 
universe  proving  dim  and  impalpable  before  his  sense!  The 
sturdy  capitalist,  no  matter  bow  deep  and  square  on  blocks  of 
Quincy  granite  he  lays  his  foundations  of  his  banking  house  ot 
Exchange,  must  set  it  at  last  not  on  a  cube  corresponding  to  the 
angles  of  his  storehouse,  but  on  a  mass  of  unknown  materials  and 
solidity,  red-hot  or  white-hot,  perhaps,  at  the  core  ;  which  rounds 
off  to  an  almost  perfect  sphericity,  and  lies  floating  in  soft  air,  and 
goes  spinning  away,  dragging  bank  and  banker  with  it  at  the  rate 
of  thousands  of  miles  an  hour,  he  knows  not  whither, — a  bit  of 
bullet  now  glimmering  now  darkling  through  a  small  cubic  space 
on  the  edge  of  an  unimaginable  pit  of  emptiness.  And  this  wild 
balloon,  in  which  his  whole  venture  is  embarked,  is  just  an  em 
blem  of  his  whole  state  and  faculty.  Ask  him  why  he  believes 
that  an  uniform  experience  will  continue  uniform,  or  on  what 
grounds  he  founds  his  faith  in  his  figures,  and  he  will  perceive 
that  his  mental  fabric  is  built  up  on  just  as  strange  and  quaking 
foundations  as  his  proud  edifice  of  stone." 

The  course  on  Human  Culture  delivered  in  the  following 
winter  appears  from  Mr.  Cabot's  analysis  to  have  been  an 
expansion  of  a  passage  in  "Man  Thinking."  "The  main 
enterprise  of  the  world  for  splendor,  for  extent,  is  the  up 
building  of  a  man."  Thus,  inverting  the  obvious  truth  tha-t 
the  individual  exists  by  and  for  the  universe,  he  showed  that 
there  was  also  a  sense  in  which  it  might  be  said  that  the 
universe  existed  by  and  for  the  individual.  In  his  next  im 
portant  public  appearance  he  ventured  on  no  such  daring 
Inversion,  but  by  merely  following  out  a  tendency  of  thought 


EMERSON.  39 

Already  widely  diffused,  involved  himself  in  what  woula  have 
proved  a  sharp  controversy  for  one  controversially  given. 
The  graduating  Divinity  class  of  Cambridge  invited  him  to 
deliver  the  customary  discourse  upon  their  entering  on  the 
ministry.  On  July  15,  1838,  he  appeared  before  them,  his 
breast  a  mine  of  perilous  stuff.  His  lonely  meditations  had 
been  much  exercised  with  the  questions  of  the  infallibility 
of  Christ  and  the  reality  of  miracles,  and  on  both  points  he 
had  been  more  orthodox  than  he  then  was.  To  the  former 
he  had  alluded  significantly  in  a  passage  in  "Man  Think 
ing."  "The  man  has  never  lived  that  can  feed  us  ever. 
The  human  mind  cannot  be  enshrined  in  a  person  who  shall 
set  a  barrier  on  any  one  side  to  this  unbounded,  unbounda- 
ble  empire.  It  is  one  central  fire,  which,  flaming  now  out 
of  the  lips  of  Etna,  lightens  the  capes  of  Sicily  ;  and  now, 
out  of  the  throat  of  Vesuvius,  illuminates  the  towers  and 
vineyards  of  Naples.  It  is  one  light  which  beams  out  of  a 
thousand  stars.  It  is  one  soul  which  illuminates  all  men." 
Of  the  miracles  attributed  to  Christ  he  had,  in  1834,  ex 
pressed  himself  doubtfully.  "  I  suppose  he  wrought  them. 
It  has  not  yet  been  shown  that  the  account  is  only  the  ad 
dition  of  credulous  and  mistaking  love."  This  was  to  be 
expected :  no  mind  was  ever  less  competent  than  Emerson's 
to  appreciate  the  weight  of  historical  evidence  for  or  against 
any  alleged  fact,  or  more  indifferent  to  the  test,  or  more  im 
patient  of  the  office.  But  in  his  own  sphere  of  the  spiritual, 
his  opinion  was  sufficiently  decided.  "  I  should  be  well  con 
tent  to  lose  them.  Indeed  I  should  be  glad.  No  person 
capable  of  perceiving  the  force  of  spiritual  truth  but  must 
see  the  the  doctrines  of  the  teacher  lose  no  more  by  this 
than  the  law  of  gravity  would  lose  if  certain  facts  alleged  to 
have  taken  place  did  not  take  place."  "  Do  not  degrade 
the  life  and  dialogues  of  Christ  by  insulation  and  peculiar 
ity.  Let  them  lie  as  they  befell,  alive  and  warm,  part  of 
the  landscape  and  of  the  cheerful  day." 

The  Divinity  School  address  might  have  passed  with  slight 
notice  if  it  had  been  delivered  anywhere  else  ;  but  the  Shep 
herds  of  Harvard  could  hardly  be  expected  to  allow  the 


40  LIFE  OF 

wolf  to  carry  off  the  lambs  in  their  very  presence  even  &t 
the  invitation  of  the  innocents  themselves.* 

Henry  Ware,  his  former  colleague  in  the  Second  Church, 
feared  that  his  doctrine  of  the  universal  soul  tended  to 
merge  Deity  in  humanity.  To  his  gentle  remonstrance 
Emerson  characteristically  replied : 

"  I  could  not  give  an  account  of  myself,  if  challenged.  I  could 
not  possibly  give  you  one  of  the  arguments  you  covertly  hint  at, 
on  which  any  doctrine  of  mine  stands  ;  for  I  do  not  know  what 
arguments  are  in  reference  to  any  expression  of  a  thought.  I  de 
light  in  telling  what  I  think,  but  if  you  ask  me  how  I  dare  say 
so,  or  why  it  is  so,  I  am  the  most  helpless  of  mortal  men.  I  do 
not  even  see  that  either  of  these  questions  admits  of  an  answer. 
So  that  in  the  present  droll  posture  of  my  affairs,  when  I  see  my 
self  suddenly  raised  to  the  importance  of  a  heretic,  I  am  very  uii- 
easy  when  I  advert  to  the  supposed  duties  of  such  a  personage, 
who  is  to  make  good  his  thesis  against  all  comers.  I  certainty 
shall  do  no  such  thing.  I  shall  read  what  you  and  other  good 
men  write,  as  I  have  always  done,  glad  when  you  speak  my 
thoughts,  and  skipping  the  page  that  has  nothing  for  me." 

These  lines  show  that  Emerson  had  formed  a  just  idea  of 
his  strength  and  his  weakness.  He  could  see,  but  he  could 
not  prove  ;  he  could  announce,  but  he  could  not  argue.  His 

*NOTE  BY  AMERICAN  EDITOR: — This  may  be  said  of  the  dis 
courses  of  Dr.  Briggs,  now  exciting  so  much  commotion  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  They  would  not  be  remarked  if  delivered 
any  where  else  than  to  divinity  students,  whose  profession  is  to 
preach  the  gospel  of  the  Bible  and  not  the  discrepancies  of  Old 
Testament  writers.  It  cannot  be  appropriate  to  teach  these  non- 
interesting  details  in  the  pulpit,  where  the  minister  is  commanded 
to  preach  ''Christ  and  Him  Crucified."  How  many  thousand 
tomes  of  dry  theology  and  so-called  learned  discourses,  like  Dr. 
Briggs'  have  sunk  deeper  than  plummet  ever  sounded,  never  to  lot 
read  again  with  interest  even  by  the  antiquarian  1 


EMERSON.  41 

intuitions  were  his  sole  guide ;  what  they  revealed  appeared 
to  him  self-evident  ;  the  ordinary  paths  by  which  men  ar 
rive  at  conclusions  were  closed  to  him.  To  those  in  spirit^ 
ual  sympathy  with  himself  he  is  not  only  fascinating,  but 
authoritative ;  his  words  authenticate  themselves  by  the 
response  they  awake  in  the  breast.  But  the  reader  who 
will  have  reasons  gets  none,  save  reason  to  believe  that  the 
oracle  is  an  imposition.  "  He  is  not  a  philosopher,"  said 
one  who  conversed  with  him  at  this  time,  "  he  is  a  seer.  If 
you  see  truth  as  he  does,  you  will  recognize  him  for  a  gifted 
teacher  ;  if  not,  there  is  little  or  nothing  to  be  snH."  <;  If 
it  be  true,"  he  wrote  at  this  time  in  his  diary,  -'that  the 
scholar  is  merely  an  observer,  a  dispassionate  reporter,  no 
partisan,  his  position  is  one  of  perfect  immunity.  To  him 
no  disputes  can  attach,  he  is  invulnerable.  The  vulgar 
think  lie  would  found  a  sect  and  be  installed  and  made  much 
of.  He  knows  better,  and  much  prefers  his  melons  and  his 
woods."  He  once  said :  "  I  am  more  of  a  Quaker  than 
anything  else.  I  believe  in  the  still,  small  voice,  and  that 
voice  is  Christ  within  us." 

The  expansion  of  Emerson's  intellectual  horizon,  and  the 
prominent  position  which,  would  he,  would  he  not,  he  was 
driven  to  assume  as  a  leader  of  thought,  inevitably  widened 
the  sphere  of  his  intimacies,  and  made  Concord  the  resort  of 
thinkers  more  or  less  exceptional  or  eccentric,  "  wearing 
their  rue  with  a  difference."  Among  them  the  most  re 
markable  was  Margaret  Fuller,  one  of  those  Sibyls  or 
Alruna  women  who  really  and  truly  do  appear,  although 
for  one  genuine  instance  there  are  a  hundred  and  fifty  pre 
tenders.  Margaret,  however,  was  a  true  counterpart  to  the 
Rahels  and  Bettinas  of  Germany  ;  unlike  the  first,  intelli 
gible,  though  oracular  ;  unlike  the  second,  neither  capri 
cious  nor  insincere.  When  Emerson  first  knew  her,  her 
character  was  in  the  fulness  both  of  its  force  and  its  angu 
larity,  qualities  greatly  tempered  in  her  latter  years.  Not 
fine  of  the  contributors  to  her  patchwork  biography  has  suc 
ceeded  in  conveying  a  living  resemblance  of  her  ;  Emerson 
does  not  even  attempt  a  portrait.  Indeed  he  must  have  en 
tertained  something  of  the  feeling  towards  her  with  which 


42  LIFE  OF 

Goethe  and  Schiller  regarded  Madame  de  Stael,  save  that 
the  New  England  meteor  "  came  to  stay."  "  It  is  to  be 
said,"  he  bravely  admits,  "  that  Margaret  made  a  disagreea 
ble  first  impression  upon  most  persons  ;  "  and  when  we  learn 
in  addition  that  ''  the  problems  that  chiefly  attracted  her 
were  Mythology  and  Demonology,"  the  thought  will  arise 
that  she  must  have  been  formidable  as  well  as  disagreeable 
Yet,  though  Emerson  paints  no  portrait,  he  does  contrive  to 
make  us  understand  how  much  more  Margaret  was  really 
interested  in  her  fellew  creatures  than  in  these  mystic  fan 
cies,  which  served  to  exercise  a  powerful  imagination,  while 
the  real  business  of  her  life  was  intellectual  comradeship  and 
spiritual  sympathy.  With  her  imperious  disposition  this 
sympathy  must  needs  be  measured  by  the  degree  in  which 
she  could  charm  the  recipient  into  her  own  circle,  and  as 
Emerson's  serene  star  never 

"  Shot  madly  from  its  sphere 
To  list  this  sea-maid's  music : " 

their  mutual  bond  was  less  close  than  her  ambition  would 
have  desired.  "  He  seemed  to  her,"  says  Mrs.  Howe,  bor 
rowing  Margaret's  own  figure,  u  the  palm-tree  in  the  desert, 
graceful  and  admirable,  bearing  aloft  a  waving  crest,  but 
spreading  no  sheltering  and  embracing  branches."  Their 
acquaintance  nevertheless  became,  if  not  a  spiritual,  an  in 
timate  literary  alliance,  which  neither  had  any  reason  to  re 
gret. 

Another  ally  of  the  period,  with  whom  Emerson  sympa 
thized  more  heartily,  was  "  the  innocent  charlatan,"  Amos 
Bronson  Alcott,  who  repaid  the  confidence  accorded  him 
with  the  fondest  reverence.  It  is  well  for  Alcott  that  he 
never  fell  into  the  hands  of  Dickens,  to  whom  he  would 
have  been  irresistible,  but  encountered  nobody  worse  than 
Carlyle,  who  has  photographed  him  for  all  time  as  '*  the 
good  Alcott,  with  his  long  lean  face  and  figure,  with  his  grey 
worn  temples  and  mild  radiant  eyes  5  all  bent  on  saving  the 
world  by  a  return  to  acorns  and  the  golden  age."  Emerson 
found  in  the  self-taught,  self-sustained,  "  peacefully  irre- 


EMEBSON.  48 

fragable  "  Alcott,  an  authentic  inlet  of  pure  light  from  the 
universal  soul  ;  which  rebuked  the  involuntary  scepticism  of 
depressed  moods  by  demonstrating  that  spirituality  was  no 
figment  of  the  imagination.  "  I  might  have  learned  to  treat 
the  Platonic  world  as  cloudland  had  I  not  known  Alcott, 
who  is  a  native  of  that  country."  William  Henry  Chan- 
ning  was  also  a  member  of  Emerson's  circle,  and  has  left  a 
picture  of  him  in  his  home.  "  I  do  confess  myself  fascinated. 
He  had  been  before  to  me  an  icy  pinnacle  only,  away  in  the 
ether,  but  as  I  came  nearer  I  found  there  was  verdure  of 
sweet  affections  and  the  beauteous  blossoms  of  lowly 
thoughts  and  common  herbs  around  the  base.  His  family 
delighted  me  ;  his  fondness  for  his  little  boy,  his  tenderness 
toward  his  wife,  the  unaffected  politeness  and  courtesy  and 
the  merry  cheerfulness  of  the  man  did  more  to  win  me  than 
all  his  lofty  contemplations.'* 

Among  these  figures,  radiant  with  sincere,  if  sometimes 
ill-directed  aspiration,  moved  at  intervals  a  dark  silent  figure 
of  spiritual  nature  too,  but  much  more  of  a  gnome  than  of 
a  sylph.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  half-consciously  contributed 
an  element  of  tragedy  to  the  Concord  society  (u  I  suppose 
he  died  of  his  painful  solitude,"  Emerson  afterwards  wrote), 
and,  quite  unconsciously,  an  element  of  comedy.  Wifely 
devotion  should  be  too  sacred  for  a  smile,  yet  it  is  hard  to 
resist  something  broader  than  a  smile  in  contrasting  the  fas 
cination  which  Mrs.  Hawthorne  supposes  her  husband  to 
have  exerted  upon  Emerson  with  Emerson's  own  frank 
avowal  that  he  talked  continually  to  Hawthore  in  the  hope 
that,  for  very  shame's  sake,  Hawthorne  would  one  day  say 
something  himself,  which  he  never  did.  Evidently  he  had 
been  insufficiently  impressed  by  Emerson's  maxim — u  It  is 
the  one  base  thing  to  receive  and  not  to  give."  They  lived 
on  neighborly  terms,  but  there  could  be  no  true  sympathy 
between  authors  who  so  greatly  underrated  each  other's 
work.  Emerson,  whose  literary  judgments  when  not  abso 
lutely  right  are  apt  to  be  absurdly  wrong,  calls  work  which 
might  embody  the  accumulated  experience  of  several  lives, 
too  young.  Hawthorne,  on  his  part,  had  too  much  imagina«* 
tion  not  to  be  sensitive  to  "  the  pure  intellectual  gleam*' 


44  LIFE  OF 

with  which  Emerson  lit  up  the  woodland  paths  around  Wai. 
den  Pond.  "  Like  the  garment  of  a  shining  one,"  he  says; 
nor  did  the  "  austere  beauty  "  of  Emerson's  poetry  repel 
him.  But  several  passages  in  his  notebooks  reveal  impa 
tience  at  Emerson's  intellectual  aloofness,  and  in  one  sup- 
pressed  at  first,  but  injudiciously  restored  by  his  son,  he  de 
scribes  Emerson  as  "  stretching  his  hand  out  of  cloudland 
in  the  vain  search  for  something  real."  The  Civil  War  was 
to  show  which  of  the  two  men  more  firmly  grasped  reality, 
but  that  time  of  fiery  trial  was  not  yet,  and  meanwhile 
Hawthorne  sat  by  Emerson's  hearth  and  drew  the  guests  in 
charcoal.  "  Young  visionaries,"  he  says,  »*  to  whom  just  so 
much  of  insight  had  been  imparted  as  to  make  life  all  a 
labyrinth  around  them,  came  to  seek  the  clue  that  should 
lead  them  out  of  their  self-involved  bewilderment.  Grey 
headed  theorists — whose  systems,  at  first  air,  had  impris 
oned  them  in  an  iron  framework — travelled  painfully  to  his 
door,  not  to  ask  deliverance,  but  to  invite  his  free  spirit  into 
their  own  thraldom.  People  that  had  lighted  on  a  new 
thought,  or  a  thought  that  they  fancied  new,  came  to  Emer 
son,  as  the  finder  of  a  glittering  gem  hastens  to  a  lapidary 
to  ascertain  its  value." 

Where  Hawthorne  saw  fit  dramatis  persona  for  his 
'*  Twice  Told  Tales,"  Emerson  discerned  the  heirs  of  all  the 
ages,  the  children  of  the  kingdom. 

"  No  one  can  converse  much  with  different  classes  of  society  in 
New  England  without  remarking  the  progress  of  a  revolution. 
Those  who  share  in  it  have  no  external  organization,  no  badge,  no 
creed,  no  name.  They  do  not  vote,  or  print,  or  even  meet  to 
gether.  They  do  not  know  each  other's  faces  or  names.  They 
are  united  only  in  a  common  love  of  uruth  arid  love  of  its  work. 
They  are  of  all  conditions  and  constitutions.  Of  these  acolytes,  it' 
some  are  happily  born  and  well  bred,  many  are  no  doubt  ill- 
dressed,  ill-placed,  ill-made,  with  as  many  scars  of  hereditary  vice 
as  other  men.  Without  pomp,  without  trumpet,  in  lonely  and 
obscure  places,  in  solitude,  in  servitude,  in  compunctions  and  pri 
vations,  trudging  beside  the  team  in  the  dusty  road,  or  drudging 


EMERSON. 

fts  hirelings  in  other  men's  cornfields,  schoolmasters  who  teach  a 
few  children  rudiments  for  a  pittance,  ministers  of  small  parishes 
of  the  obscure  sects,  lone  women  in  dependent  condition,  matrons 
and  young  maidens,  rich  and  poor,  beautiful  and  hard-favored, 
without  concert  or  proclamation  of  any  kind,  they  have  silently 
given  in  their  several  adherence  to  a  new  hope,  and  in  all  com 
panies  do  signify  a  greater  trust  in  the  nature  and  resources  of 
man  than  the  laws  or  the  popular  opinions  will  well  allow." 

Tliis  fine  passage  jg  from  the  confession  of  faith  prefixed 
by  Emerson  to  "  The  Dial,"  which,  under  the  editorship  of 
Margaret  Fuller,  appeared  as  the  organ  of  New  England 
Transcendentalism,  in  July,  1840.  The  reality  of  the  phe 
nomena  thus  eloquently  described  was  universally  admitted, 
but  others  saw  in  them  "  the  Pentecost  of  Shinar."  And, 
unquestionably,  a  Babylonish  dialect  was  not  unfrequently 
heard,  and  Mrs.  Hominy  was  no  mere  creation  of  the  novel 
ist's  brain.  Margaret  Fuller  bore  the  burden  of  **  The 
Dial'*  as  long  as  she  could,  and  in  1842  Emerson  assumed 
it,  though  foreseeing  that  he  should  "  rue  the  day  of  accept 
ing  such  an  intruder  on  my  peace,  such  a  consumer  of  my 
time.  But  you  have  played  martyr  a  little  too  long  alone  ; 
let  there  be  rotation  in  martyrdom." 

"  We  are  a  little  wild  here,"  wrote  Emerson  to  Carlyle, 
on  October  30,  1840,  "  with  numberless  projects  of  social 
reform.  Not  a  reading  man  but  has  his  draft  of  a  new 
community  in  his  waistcoat  pocket.  I  am  gently  mad  my 
self."  Socialism  was  indeed  in  the  air  of  the  time,  and  not 
wholly  without  reason.  Even  the  staid  George  Combe,  vis 
iting  America  in  1839,  was  induced  by  the  difficulties  which 
he  perceived  to  attach  to  the  management  of  American 
households,  to  conjecture  that  the  richer  Americans  might 
in  time  agree  to  solve  them  by  cooperation.  The  practical 
outcome  of  this  unrest  was  the  establishment  of  Alcott's 
little  and  luckless  community  at  Fruitlands,  and  the  more 
famed  experiment  at  Brook  Farm,  immortalized  in  Haw 
thorne's  "  Blithedale  Romance."  It  was  inevitable  that 
Emerson  should  be  pressed  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  pro 
jectors,  and,  conscious  of  a  certain  responsibility  toward 


46  LIfE  Off 

professed,  followers,  he  felt  compunction  at  hanging  back. 
But  he  was  an  individual  of  individuals  ;  a  crystal  isolated, 
infrangible,  infusible  ;  the  last  of  mankind  to  be  merged  in 
a  joint-stock  association.  He  wisely  determined  that  his 
service  must  consist  for  the  present  in  standing  still  and 
waiting,  and  that  he  must  needs  "  submit  to  the  degradation 
of  owning  bank  stock  and  seeing  poor  men  suffer."  By 
way  of  atonement  he  himself  tried  some  experiments  on  a 
small  scale.  Feeling  that  he  would  be  happier  if  his  house 
sheltered  more  fellow-creatures,  he  offered  the  Alcotts  free 
hospitality  for  a  year,  a  scheme  which  fortunately  came  to 
nothing.  He  had  always  been  remarkable  for  considerate- 
ness  to  his  servants,  and  now  tried  to  revive  the  patriarchal, 
feudal,  and  in  a  simple  state  of  society  most  seemly  institu 
tion  of  a  common  family  board.  But  Louisa  the  maid 
would  not  sit  down  without  Lydia  the  cook,  and  Lydia  held 
that  a  cook,  unlike  her  dishes,  was  never  fit  to  come  to  table. 
He  theorized  upon  the  advantage  of  combining  manual 
labor  with  literary  composition,  but  experience  soon  con 
vinced  him  that  his  fine  speeches  must  be  unsaid.  All  these 
things  he  regarded  as,  at  most,  counsels  of  perfection  for 
the  individual :  he  perceived  that  the  impossible  expecta 
tions  of  the  rank  and  file  must  force  the  leaders  into  char 
latanism,  and  touched  the  extravagances  of  Fourierism  with 
playful  satire.  But  he  saw  more  deeply  into  it  than  those 
for  whom  it  was  quite  enough  that  Fourier  proposed  to  turn 
the  seas  into  lemonade.  "  I  regard  these  philanthropists  as 
themselves  the  effects  of  the  age  in  which  we  live,  and,  in 
common  with  so  many  other  good  facts,  the  efflorescence  of 
the  period,  and  predicting  a  good  fruit  that  ripens.  They 
were  not  the  creators  they  believed  themselves,  but  they 
were  unconscious  prophets  of  a  true  state  of  society  :  they 
were  describers  of  that  which  is  really  being  done.  The 
large  cities  are  phalansteries,  and  the  theorists  drew  all  their 
arguments  from  facts  already  taking  place  in  our  experi 
ence." 

The  Brook  Farm  adventure  has  been  much  misappre 
hended.  THougirTnspired  by  Fourier's  ideas,  it  was  hardly 
a  socialistic  experiment.  The  freedom  of  the  individual 


EMERSON.  47 

member  was  jealously  guarded  by  its  constitution.  Mem 
bers  were  not  required  to  impoverish  themselves,  or  resign 
the  fruits  of  their  earnings.  It  was  especially  Fourieristic 
in  the  stress  laid  upon  culture  and  refinement,  and  one  of 
the  leading  features  was  an  excellent  school.  It  hence  at 
tracted  many  considerably  in  need  of  such  humanizing  in 
fluences,  and  such  profited  largely  by  the  opportunity  ;  but, 
as  Emerson  shrewdly  remarks,  they  came  rather  to  learn 
than  to  work,  "  and  were  charged  by  the  heads  of  the  de 
partments  with  a  certain  indolence  and  selfishness."  It  may 
be  added  that  others  came  less  to  work  than  to  play,  and, 
what  was  worse,  could  not  discover  that  their  work,  when 
they  performed  any,  was  attended  by  those  ennobling  effects 
on  the  character  which  theoretically  ought  to  have  accrued. 
"  They  scratched  their  heads  sometimes,  to  see,  was  the 
hair  turned  wool  ?  "  On  the  other  hand,  the  art  of  letter- 
writing  was  immensely  cultivated,  and  plain  people  saw  with 
astonishment  that  he  who  ploughed  all  day  earned  no  more 
than  he  who  looked  out  of  the  window.  The  scheme  had  a 
beautiful  side,  but  it  wanted  reality.  "  What  I  am  doing," 
says  Emerson,  most  wisely,  "  may  not  be  the  highest  thing 
to  do  in  all  the  world,  but  while  I  am  doing  it  I  must  think 
that  it  is,  or  I  shall  not  do  it  with  impunity."  Brook  Farm 
was  little  more  than  a  highly  intellectual  picnic,  and  though 
it  might  have  prolonged  its  existence  indefinitely  if  it  had 
not  involved  itself  in  industrial  competition,  its  existence 
could  have  demonstrated  nothing  more  than  the  agreeable- 
ness  of  association  with  agreeable  company,  and,  which  was 
certainly  more  important,  the  possibility  of  frank  equality 
among  different  orders  of  society.  To  this,  Emerson,  a 
sharp  observer  and  no  indiscriminate  panegyrist,  may  be  ac 
cepted  as  a  sufficient  witness  :  "  What  knowledge  of  them 
selves  and  of  each  other,  what  various  practical  wisdom, 
what  personal  power,  what  studies  of  character,  what  ac 
cumulated  culture,  many  of  the  members  owed  to  it !  What 
mutual  measure  they  took  of  each  other  !  It  was  a  close 
union,  like  that  in  a  ship's  cabin,  of  clergymen,  young  col 
legians,  merchants,  mechanics,  farmers'  sons  and  daughters, 
with  men  and  women  of  rare  opportunities  and  delicate  cul- 


48  LITE  OF 

ture,  yet  assembled  there  by  a  sentiment  which  all  shared- 
some  of  them  hotly  shared — of  the  honesty  of  a  life  of 
labor,  and  the  beauty  of  a  life  of  humanity.  The  yeoman 
saw  refined  manners  in  persons  who  were  his  friends,  and 
the  lady  or  the  romantic  scholar  saw  the  continuous  strength 
and  faculty  in  people  who  would  have  disgusted  them  but 
that  these  powers  were  now  spent  in  the  direction  of  their 
own  theory  of  life." 

Even  if  Emerson  had  not  been  too  much  of  an  individ 
ualist  to  be  deeply  fascinated  by  cooperative  schemes,  he 
had  long  taken  root  in  Concord.  "  When  I  bought  my 
farm,"  he  says,  "  I  did  not  know  what  a  bargain  I  had  in 
the  bluebirds,  bobolinks,  and  thrushes,  which  wrere  not 
charged  in  the  bill.  As  little  did  I  guess  what  sublime 
mornings  and  sunsets  I  was  buying,  what  reaches  of  land- 
ecape,  and  what  fields  and  lanes  for  a  tramp.  Still  less  did 
I  know  what  good  arid  true  neighbors  I  was  buying,  men  of 
strength  and  virtue,  some  of  them  now  known  the  country 
through,  but  whom  I  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  long  be 
fore  the  country  did."  Other  neighbors  of  homelier  note 
had  an  equal  share  of  his  esteem  ;  "not  doctors  of  laws,  but 
doctors  of  land,  skilled  in  turning  a  swamp  or  a  sandbank 
into  a  fruitful  field."  Hawthorne  shows  us  the  type  of  such 
an  one  :  "  A  short  and  stalwart  and  sturdy  personage,  of 
middle  age,  with  a  face  of  shrewd  and  kind  expression,  and 
manners  of  natural  courtesy.  He  had  a  very  free  flow  of 
talk,  and  not  much  diffidence  about  his  own  opinions ;  for, 
with  a  little  induction  from  Mr.  Emerson,  he  began  to  dis 
course  about  the  state  of  the  nation,  agriculture,  and  busi 
ness  in  general,  uttering  thoughts  that  had  come  to  him  at 
the  plough,  and  which  had  a  sort  of  flavor,  of  the  fresh  earth 
about  them."  Such  were  the  men  by  whose  homely  wisdom. 
Emerson  loved  to  profit.  "  He  is  a  thinker,"  wrote  Miss 
Martineau,  who  visited  him  in  his  home,  "  without  being 
solitary,  abstracted,  and  unfitted  for  the  time.  He  is  ready 
at  every  call  of  action.  He  lectures  to  the  factory  people 
at  Lowell  when  they  ask.  He  preaches  when  the  oppor 
tunity  is  presented.  He  is  known  at  every  house  along  the 
road  he  travels  to  and  from  home  by  the  words  he  has 


EMERSOK.  49 

dropped,  and  the  deeds  he  has  done."  He  attended  the  town- 
meetings  with  the  punctuality  of  a  good  citizen,  though 
never  participating  in  the  proceedings  otherwise  than  by  his 
vote.  The  tall,  slender,  somewhat  stooping  figure,  with 
narrow  and  aquiline  mould  of  countenance,  brow  not  high 
but  finely  modelled,  deep-set  eyes  of  such  intense  blue  as 
has  been  said  to  be  only  found  in  sea-captains,  firm  but 
sensitive  mouth,  expression  compounded  of  enthusiasm  and 
kindly  shrewdness,  as  of  a  spirit  entrusted  with  earthly  in 
terests,  mingled  habitually  witli  the  twenty-five  "  solidest 
men  "  who  made  up  the  Concord  Social  Club.  "  Much  the 
best  society  I  have  ever  known,"  says  Emerson  ;  who  adds 
that  he  never  liked  to  be  away  from  Concord  on  Tuesdays, 
when  the  club  met.  He  probably  found  it  a  welcome  relief 
to  the  strain  of  lonely  thought,  for  the  nature  of  his  intel 
lectual  labor  condemned  him  to  solitude  while  it  lasted  ;  and 
meditation,  if  not  actual  composition,  was  his  daily  habit. 
He  worked  partly  in  his  study,  partly  in  the  woods.  He 
went  out  earhjr,  he  said,  to  hunt  a  thought,  as  a  boy  might 
hunt  a  butterfly,  and,  when  successful,  pinned  the  prize  in 
his  cabinet  by  entering  it  in  his  "  Thought  Book."  Down 
the  capture  went,  without  any  order,  but  when  the  need  for 
essay  or  lecture  arose,  inquisition  was  made,  and,  by  the  aid 
of  an  index,  the  thoughts  which  fitted  the  subject  were  un 
earthed,  polished,  and  linked  together,  like  beads  on  a 
thread,  Emerson  said.  "I  write,"  he  tells  Carlyle,  "with 
very  little  system,  and,  as  far  as  regards  composition,  with 
most  fragmentary  result — paragraphs  incomprehensible,  each 
sentence  an  infinitely  repellent  particle."  Yet  his  u  Method 
of  Nature"  was  "written  in  the  heat  and  happiness  of  a 
real  inspiration:"  and  he  speaks  in  "  Circles "  of  "days 
when  he  was  full  of  thoughts,  and  could  write  as  he  pleased." 
His  peculiar  genius  rendered  him  more  independent  of 
books  than  any  other  great  writer  of  his  age.  Depending 
so  exclusively  on  his  own  intuitions,  his  attitude  toward 
other  men  was  necessarily  somewhat  that  of  the  Caliph 
Omar  toward  the  Alexandria  Library.  He  would  deeply 
venerate  them  only  when  he  felt  them  to  have  gone  beyond 
himself  on  some  line  of  his  own,  like  Swedenborg  or  Mon« 
4 


50  LIFE  O* 

taigne.  •  On  the  whole,  the  chief  use  of  books  to  him  was 
the  same  as  the  chief  use  he  drew  from  his  neighbors :  to 
provide  himself  with  intellectual  stimulus  ("make  my  top 
spin,"  he  called  it),  and  keep  his  faculties  from  rusting. 
"  They  inspire,"  he  said,  "  or  they  are  nothing."  No 
author  seems  at  any  time  to  have  exercised  a  controlling  in 
fluence  over  him.  He  would  have  been  the  same  Platonist 
if  Plato  had  never  lived.  He  pleased  himself  as  well  as 
Carlyle  by  reading  through  the  whole  of  Goethe  at  Carlyle's 
instance,  but  the  traces  of  his  study  would  have  been  faint 
if  Goethe  had  not  figured  among  his  *'  Representative  Men." 
Next  to  poetry  and  mystic  -wisdom  his  favorite  reading  was 
biography — "  Plutarch,"  he  says,  "is  the  Doctor  and  his 
torian  of  heroism  " — and  he  delighted  in  anecdote.  His 
literary  taste,  on  the  whole,  was  in  one  sense  very  exclu 
sive,  rejecting  Scott  and  Shelley  as  well  as  Aristophanes  and 
Cervantes ;  in  another  very  catholic,  ranging  from  the 
Bhagavat  Ghita  to  Martial.  In  literature,  as  in  life,  his 
aim  was  spiritual  manhood,  and  he  valued  books  and  men 
mainly  as  he  found  or  deemed  them  to  conduce  to  it.  Thus 
he  wrote,  "  Our  resources  are  not  so  much  the  pens  of  prac 
tised  writers  as  the  discourse  of  the  living,  and  the  portfolios 
which  friendship  has  opened  to  us." 

It  is  a  testimony  at  once  of  Heaven's  kindness  to  Emer 
son,  and  of  his  own  kindliness,  that  the  only  misfortunes  of 
his  life  which  he  felt  as  cruel  wounds,  were  the  untimely 
deaths  of  those  near  and  dear  to  him.  He  had  lost  the 
first  choice  of  his  heart  and  his  two  marvelous  brothers ; 
and  now,  at  the  beginning  of  1842,  he  was  to  be  more 
heavily  afflicted  still.  If  he  was  more  exemplary  in  any 
one  relation  of  life  than  another  it  was  in  the  father's.  The 
recollections  of  his  surviving  children  depict  the  ideal  of 
wisdom,  thoughtfulness,  and  gentleness.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  best  of  fathers  had  been  rewarded  by  the  best  of 
sons.  Whether  the  remarkable  promise  of  his  first-born 
would  have  been  fulfilled,  it  is  of  course  impossible  to  say ; 
but  much  might  reasonably  be  augured  of  a  boy  of  five  so 
affectionate  as  to  be  his  father's  constant  companion,  and 
so  considerate  as  to  spend  hours  in  his  study  without  one 


EMEfcSOtt.  61 

noisy  outbreak.  "  A  domesticated  sunbeam,"  says  a  friend 
of  the  house,  "  with  his  father's  voice,  but  softened,  and 
beautiful  dark  blue  eyes  with  long  lashes."  Emerson  him 
self  names  no  family  likeness ;  like  the  lover  in  his  own 
essay  he  "sees  no  resemblance  except  to  summer  evenings 
and  diamond  mornings,  to  rainbows  and  the  song  of 
birds,"— 

"  The  wonderous  child, 
Whose  silver  warble  wild 
Outvalued  every  pulsing  sound 
Within  the  air's  cerulean  round, — 
The  hyacinthine  boy,  for  whom 
Morn  well  might  break  and  April  bloom,— 
The  gracious  boy,  who  did  adorn 
The  world  whereinto  he  was  born, 
And  by  his  countenance  repay 
The  favor  of  the  loving  Day." 

Waldo  Emerson  was  born  October  30,  1836,  and  died 
January  27,  1842,  after  a  few  days'  illness,  from  scarlet 
fever.  Emerson's  grief  was  the  grief  depicted  on  a  Greek 
funeral  monument,  beautiful  in  its  subdued  intensity.  He 
dissembled  nothing  from  himself,  not  even  his  gratitude  for 
every  anodyne.  "  The  innocent  and  beautiful,"  he  wrote, 
"should  not  be  sourly  and  gloomily  lamented,  but  with 
music  and  fragrant  thoughts  and  sportive  recollections. 
.  .  .  Life  wears  on,  and  ministers  its  undelaying  and  grand 
lessons,  its  un containable  endless  poetry,  its  stern  dry  prose 
of  scepticism — like  veins  of  cold  air  in  the  evening  woods, 
quickly  swallowed  by  the  wide  warmth  of  June — its  steady 
correction  of  the  rashness  and  short-sight  of  youthful  judg 
ments,  and  its  pure  repairs  of  all  the  rents  and  seeming  ruin 
it  operates  in  what  it  gave ;  although  we  love  the  first  gift 
so  well  that  we  cling  long  to  the  ruin,  and  think  we  will  be 
cold  to  the  new  if  new  shall  come.  But  the  new  steals  on 
us  like  a  star  which  rises  behind  our  back  as  we  walk,  and 
we  are  borrowing  gladly  its  light  before  we  know  the  bene 
factor."  In  the  thrilling  threnody  already  quoted,  after 


52  LIff E  Off 

the  stricken  heart  has  long  afflicted  itself  with  the  agonizing 
pictures  traced  by  Memory  and  Fancy,  Philosophy  and 
Religion  bring  it  consolation  at  last — 

"  Fair  the  soul's  recess  and  shrine, 

Magic-built  to  last  a  season, 

Masterpiece  of  love  benign : 

Fairer  that  expansive  Reason 

Whose  omen  'tis,  and  sign. 

Wilt  thou  not  ope  thy  heart  to  know 

What  rainbows  teach,  and  sunsets  show? 

Revere  the  Maker,  fetch  thine  eye 

Up  to  his  style,  and  manners  of  the  sky. 

Not  of  adamant  and  gold 

Built  he  heaven,  stark  and  cold. 

No,  but  a  nest  of  bending  reeds, 

Flowering  grass,  and  scented  weeds ; 

Or  like  a  traveller's  fleeing  tent, 

Or  bow  above  the  tempest  bent ; 

Built  of  tears  and  sacred  flames, 

And  virtue  reaching  to  its  aims ; 

Built  of  furtherance  and  pursuing, 

Not  of  spent  deeds,  but  of  doing. 

House  and  tenant  go  to  ground, 

Lost  in  God,  in  Godhead  found." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  single  action  in  Emerson's 
life  not  disinterested,  and  none  were  more  beautifully  in 
spired  by  unselfishness  than  his  effort  to  assure  Carlyle's 
works  their  due  publicity  in  this  country  and  Carlyle  his  due 
reward.  Carlyle's  gratitude  was  warm,  but  it  would  have 
been  warmer  still  if  he  had  known  the  extent  of  his  indebt 
edness.  On  August  3,  1839,  Emerson  wrote  in  his  diary, 
"  Carlyle's  accounts  have  required  what  were  for  me  very 
considerable  advances,  and  so  have  impoverished  me  in  the 
current  months  very  much."  Small  remittances  for  Carlyle 
still  crossed  the  Atlantic  for  some  time  longer,  and  he  on 
his  part  could  send  Emerson  twenty-four  pounds  on  account 


EMERSON.  53 

of  the  English  reprint  of  his  Essays,  notwithstanding  the 
competition  of  "  a  scoundrel  interloper,  who  prints  on  grey 
paper."  The  first  series  of  his  Essays  appeared  in  1841. 
Up  to  tliis  date  he  had  been  chiefly  known  as  a  lecturer, 
and  although  the  imputation  of  heresy  had  helped  his  dis 
course  before  the  Divinity  class  to  a  sale  of  a  thousand 
copies,  his  reputation  was  still  mainly  local,  and  confined  to 
the  inner  circles  even  of  New  England  culture.  But  the 
Essays  went  wherever  the  English  language  was  spoken, 
and  the  revelation  of  his  name  was  also  the  revelation  of 
his  ripest  power.  They  were  not,  like  "  Nature,"  too 
mystic  and  dithyrambic  for  the  reader  who  valued  himself 
on  his  common  sense ;  nor,  like  the  addresses  on  public 
occasions,  were  they  in  some  measure  of  local  and  limited 
application.  A  considerable  portion,  indeed,  had  been 
originally  delivered  in  the  shape  of  lectures.  u  Love," 
"  Friendship,"  "  Prudence,"  "  The  Over-Soul,"  "  Spiritual 
Laws,"  for  instance,  had  been  largely  treated  of  in  the 
courses  for  1836  and  1837  ;  and  much  material  for  a  second 
series  existed  in  these  and  in  other  courses.  But  in  this 
shape  they  had  been  blended  with  matter  of  less  value,  and 
lacked  the  polish  of  perfect  literary  expression  which,  as 
regarded  the  finish  of  individual  sentences,  they  now  re 
ceived  to  a  degree  rarely  surpassed  by  intellectual  crafts-^ 
manship.  The  threefold  test  of  lustre,  of  durability,  and  ) 
of  uniqueness,  ranks  them  definitively  among  the  diamonds  ' 
of  literature.  Diamonds,  however,  are  no  material  for 
statues  ;  and  Emerson's  writings,  some  short  poems  ex- 
cepted,  prefer  no  claim  to  the  yet  higher  grace  of  logical 
unity  and  symmetrical  completeness.  His  usual  method  of 
literary  work,  already  described,  precluded  the  composition 
of  an  essay  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  The  thought 
that  came  to  him  to-day  generally  bore  slight  affinity  to  the 
thought  of  yesterday  or  to-morrow.  There  is  just  enough 
unity  of  purpose  and  endeavor  after  artistic  construction  in 
each  several  Essay  to  raise  it  from  the  category  of  Table- 
Talks,  the  desultory  record  of  the  wisdom  of  an  Epictetus, 
a  Luther,  a  Coleridge,  and  to  inscribe  the  collection  upon 
the  roll  of  great  unsystematic  books,  along  with  Marcus 


54  LIFE  OP 

Aurelius  and  Thomas  a  Kempis,  Pascal  and  Montaigne.  It 
differs  from  their  monumental  writings  as  the  nineteenth 
century  differs  from  the  Roman  period,  or  the  middle  age. 
It  is  less  massive,  but  it  is  far  more  opulent.  Emerson  is 
rarely  sublime  like  Marcus  Aurelius,  but  he  disposes  of  a 
wealth  of  varied  illustration  of  which  Marcus  Aurelius 
knew  nothing ;  and  he  has  turned  every  page  of  the  book 
of  Nature,  which,  until  these  latter  ages,  it  has  been  the 
fault  of  ethical  writers  to  neglect. 

Were  we  to  look  for  the  conductor  of  the  Emerson 
orchestra,  we  should  perhaps  find  it  in  the  essay  entitled 
"  The  Over-Soul."  It  seems  to  set  the  music  to  which  the 
others  march.  It  enforces  the  ideas  which  draw  all  else 
after  them — that  the  universe  is  one  existence  by  virtue  of 
its  interpenetration  by  a  single  divine  essence,  and  that  one 
soul  animates  jilL  mankind.  "  We  see  the  world  piece  by 
piece,  as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  animal,  the  tree  ;  but  the 
whole,  of  which  these  are  the  shining  parts,  is  the  soul.  .  .  . 
From  within  or  from  behind,  a  light  shines  through  us  upon 
things,  and  makes  us  aware  that  we  are  nothing,  but  the 
light  is  all.  What  we  commonly  call  man,  the  eating, 
drinking,  planting,  calculating  man,  does  not,  as  we  know 
him,  represent  himself,  but  misrepresents  himself.  Him  we 
do  not  respect,  but  the  soul,  whose  organ  he  is,  would  he  let 
it  appear  through  his  action,  would  make  our  knees  bend. 
When  it  breathes  through  his  intellect,  it  is  genius  ;  when  it 
breathes  through  his  will,  it  is  virtue  ;  when  it  flows  through 
his  affection,  it  is  love.  .  .  .  All  reform  aims,  in  some  one 
particular,  to  let  the  great  soul  have  its  way  through  us." 
Starting  from  this  postulate,  the  writer  works  his  way 
through  a  number  of  beautiful  illustrations  to  Carlyle's 
conclusion,  "  All  history  is  sacred."  The  possible  exag 
geration  of  this  pantheistic  optimism  into  absolute  apathy  is 
warded  off  by  a  supplementary  discourse  on  Compensation, 
pointing  out  the  "  inevitable  dualism  that  bisects  nature," 
and  which  is  reproduced  in  every  separate  existence,  and 
every  fact  of  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  life.  "  If  the 
good  is  there,  so  is  the  evil  ;  if  the  affinity,  so  the  repulsion ; 
if  the  forces,  so  the  limitation."  The  world  is  not,  there- 


EMERSON.  66 

fore,  a  monotonous  effluence  of  Divinity  ;  but  it  is  an  ef 
fluence  nevertheless  :  and  by  nothing  is  the  fact  proved 
more  clearly  than  by  the  nice  adjustment  and  absolute 
balance  of  compensation  throughout;  the  whole  of  it.  It  is 
an  utter  fallacy  to  imagine  that  the  bad  are  successful,  that 
justice  is  not  done  now. 

"Hast  not  thy  share  ?    On  winged  feet, 
Lo  !  it  rushes  thee  to  meet : 
And  all  that  Nature  made  thine  own, 
Floating  in  air  or  pent  in  stone, 
Will  rive  the  hills  and  swim  the  sea, 
And,  like  thy  shadow,  follow  thee." 

The  object  of  the  fine  essay  quaintly  entitled  "Circles"  is 
to  reconcile  this  rigidity  of  unalterable  law  with  the  fact  of 
human  progress.  Compensation  illustrates  one  property  of 
a  circle,  which  always  returns  to  the  point  where  it  began. 
But  it  is  no  less  true  that  around  every  circle  another  can 
be  drawn.  "  The  life  of  man  is  a  self-evolving  circle, 
which,  from  a  ring  imperceptibly  small,  rushes  on  all  sides 
outwards  to  new  and  larger  circles,  and  that  without  end. 
Hence  all  forms  of  culture,  however  relatively  perfect,  be 
come  in  time  obsolete.  For  the  genius  that  created  them 
creates  now  something  else."  Hence  there  is  no  security 
but  in  infinite  progress.  "  As  soon  as  you  once  come  up 
with  a  man's  limitations,  it  is  all  over  with  him.  Infinitely 
alluring  and  attractive  was  he  to  you  yesterday,  a  great 
hope,  a  sea  to  swim  in ;  now  you  have  found  its  shores, 
found  it  a  pond  ;  and  you  care  not  if  you  never  see  it 
again." 

Emerson  followed  his  own  counsel ;  he  always  keeps  a 
reserve  of  power.  His  theory  of  "  Circles "  reappears 
without  the  least  verbal  indebtedness  to  himself,  in  the 
splendid  essay  on  Love.  Here,  having  painted  as  haidly 
any  other  has  painted,  the  beauty  of  personal  relations  and 
the  "mighty  ravishment"  of  the  passion  of  love,  he  rebukes 
his  own  raptures  by  treating  it  as  after  all  something  rudi 
mentary,  ancillary  and  preparatory  to  the  liberal  use  and 


50  LIFE  OF 

the  perfect  knowledge  of  life,  Nature's  lure  to  a  higher  end, 
"  only  one  scene  in  our  play."  "  At  last  they  discover  that 
all  which  at  first  drew  them  together — these  once  sacred 
features,  that  magical  play  of  charms — was  deciduous, 
had  a  prospective  end,  like  the  scaffolding  by  which  the 
house  was  built ;  and  the  purification  of  the  intellect  and 
the  heart,  from  year  to  year,  is  the  real  marriage,  foreseen 
and  prepared  from  the  first,  and  wholly  above  their  con 
sciousness."  Notwithstanding  the  assurance  that  "  we  need 
riot  fear  to  lose  anything  by  the  progress  of  the  soul,"  this 
deliverance  can  hardly  act  otherwise  than  as  a  drench  of 
cold  water  to  the  "  fine  madman  "  whom  the  writer,  him 
self  performing  the  part  which  he  attributes  to  Nature, 
has  allured  to  this  sober  conclusion  by  the  bait  of  gorgeous 
and  impassioned  speech.  It  is,  therefore,  with  all  its  poetry, 
rather  for  the  mature  than  the  young. 

" The  gay  enchantment  is  undone: 
A  gentle  wife,  but  fairy  none. ' ' 

The  austere  stoicism  of  the  companion  essay  on  Friend 
ship  may  affect  even  the  mature  reader  with  something 
of  a  similar  jar.  Here,  however,  it  is  the  general  drift 
that  wounds,  and  the  conclusion  that  redeems.  "  These 
things  may  hardly  be  said  without  a  sort  of  treachery  to  the 
relation.  The  essence  of  friendship  is  entireness,  a  total 
magnanimity  and  trust.  It  must  not  surmise  or  provide  for 
infirmity.  It  treats  its  object  as  a  god,  that  it  may  deify 
both."  "  Self-Reliance  "  and  "  Heroism  "  are  another  pair 
of  essays,  the  former  of  which  must  have  had  especial  in- 
fluence  in  shaping  the  social  type  then  growing  np  in  New 
England.  We  must  pass  by  these,  as  well  as  "  Prudence," 
"  Intellect,"  and  "Spiritual  Laws,"  to  devote  a  word  to 
•'  History"  and  "  Art."  These  illustrate  what  an  abstract 
principle,  if  just  in  itself,  will  do  for  the  elucidation  of  a 
given  subject,  and  how  far  it  fails  in  the  absence  of  special 
study.  In  the  essay  on  History  we  feel  that  Emerson's 
view  of  human  nature  as  an  incarnation  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
binds  all  the  ages  together,  and  makes  them  all  equally 


EMERSON.  57 

living  and  real  to  the  man  of  to-day,  in  so  far  as  his  knowL. 
edge  of  them  supplies  color  for  the  mental  picture.  But 
we  also  feel  that  Emerson  does  not  personally  get  much  be 
yond  his  grand  generalization,  and  that  he  is  indifferent  to 
the  archaeological  research  which  is  needed  for  a  just  real 
ization  of  the  past,  which  would  have  saved  him  from  many 
fanciful  extravagances.  In  the  essay  on  Art  the  fundamental 
conception  of  Art  as  an  educational  process,  elevating 
the  soul  to  the  perception  of  beauty,  is  valuable  if  not  ex 
haustive  ;  but  in  concluding  that  the  perception,  once  at 
tained,  would  supersede  the  educational  process  and  render 
art  obsolete,  Emerson  overlooked  the  fact  that  many  men 
are  born  with  physical  and  mental  aptitudes  impelling  them 
to  artistic  employment,  and  which  can  find  no  other  exer 
cise.  Man  must  continue  to  paint  and  carve,  and  cultivate 
music,  or  the  finer  endowments  of  his  sense  will  become  as 
atrophied  as  the  naturalist's  relish  for  Milton  and  Shake 
speare. 

Carlyle  repaid  his  obligations  to  Emerson  by  a  preface  to 
the  English  edition  of  the  Essays,  which  secured  it  im 
mediate  recognition  in  this  country.  He  was  evidently  not 
entirely  in  sympathy  with  Emerson's  literary  manner,  which 
he  criticizes  with  justice  as  abrupt  and  fitful,  nor  does  he  re 
peat  the  verdict  of  his  private  correspondence  on  its  charac 
teristic  merits.  These  he  had  already  defined  with  inimi 
table  felicity  as  "brevity,  simplicity,  softness,  homely  grace, 
with  such  a  penetrating  meaning,  soft  enough,  but  irresist 
ible,  going  down  to  the  depths  and  up  to  the  heights,  as 
silent  electricity  goes."  The  public  expression  of  his  ad 
miration  is  mainly  reserved  for  the  moralist,  the  man  of 
sure  intuition.  "  One  man  more  who  knows  and  believes  of 
very  certainty  that  Man's  Soul  is  still  alive,  that  God's  uni 
verse  is  still  godlike,  that  of  all  Ages  of  Miracles  ever  seen, 
or  dreamt  of,  by  far  the  most  miraculous  is  this  age  in  this 
hour."  He  had  said  to  like  effect  in  a  private  letter : 
"  Once  more  the  voice  of  a  man  !  Ah  me  !  I  feel  as  if  in 
the  wide  world  there  were  still  but  this  one  voice  that  re 
sponded  intelligently  to  my  own  :  as  if  the  rest  were  all 
hearsays,  melodious  or  unmelodious  echoes.  My  blessing  on 


58  LIFE  OP 

you,  good  Ralph  Waldo!  "  The  book's  sale  in  England  was 
at  first  slow,  but  its  reception  in  intellectual  circles  was 
never  doubtful.  Milnes,  wrote  Carlyle,  was  warm,  and 
Harriet  Martineau  enthusiastic.  John  Sterling,  he  added, 
scolding  and  kissed,  as  the  manner  of  the  man  was,  and 
concluded  by  asking  whether  it  was  possible  to  obtain  the 
author's  likeness.  By  and  by  lovers  began  to  buy  the 
volume  in  duplicate,  arid,  having  marked  the  favorite  pas 
sages  in  one  copy,  to  lend  the  other  to  the  beloved  one  in 
hopes  that  she  would  mark  the  same ;  but  it  was  never 
found  to  make  much  difference  what  she  marked.  An 
anonymous  critic  in  Fraser  classed  Emerson  among  here- 
siarchs — rightly  in  the  judgment  of  Carlyle,  who  described 
the  reviewer  as  "emphatic,  earnest,  not  without  a  kind  of 
splay-footed  thought  and  sincerity,"  and  opined  that  he  had 
enough  in  him  to  warrant  his  holding  his  peace  for  the  nexf 
five  years. 

The  consideration  of  some  of  the  most  important  of  his 
discourses  at  this  period  will  be  best  reserved  for  a  review  of 
his  relation  to  national  politics.  In  one  of  a  course  on  "  The 
Present  Age  "  he  put  the  religious  tendencies  of  the  age 
into  a  sentence :  "  Religion  does  not  seem  now  to  tend 
to  a  cultus,  but  to  a  heroic  life."  In  another  he  dwelt 
on  the  narrowness  of  temperance  reformers,  and  all 
such  as  would  regenerate  society  by  special  nostrums  ; 
which  he  exhibited  with  even  more  terseness  in  a 
passage  in  his  diary  written  about  this  time.  "  You  take 
away,  but  what  do  you  give  ?  Mr.  Jefts  has  been  preached 
into  tipping  up  his  barrel  of  rum  into  the  brook  ;  but  day 
after  to-morrow,  when  he  wakes  up  cold  and  poor,  will  he 
feel  that  he  has  somewhat  for  somewhat  ?  If  I  could  lift 
him  up  by  happy  violence  into  a  religious  beatitude,  or  im- 
paradise  him  in  ideas,  then  I  should  have  greatly  more  than 
indemnified  him  for  what  I  have  taken."  «» The  Method  of 
Nature"  (1841)  was  composed,  he  says,  in  the  heat  and 
happiness  of  what  he  thought  a  real  inspiration,  as  it  cer 
tainly  was.  It  is  one  of  the  most  eloquent  and  most 
pregnant  of  his  productions,  a  glowing  rapture  of  idealistic 
Pantheism,  a  paraphrase  of  Goethe's  pithy  text : 


EMERSON.  59 

"  Natur  hat  weder  Kern  noch  Schaale  : 
Alles  1st  Sie  mit  eineni  Male." 

The  method  of  Nature  cannot  be  analyzed.  The  new 
"  (hear  this,  ye  ultra-Darwinians  !)  "  says,  '  I  will  give 
you  the  key  to  Nature,'  and  we  expect  to  go  like  a  thunder 
bolt  to  the  centre.  But  the  thunder  is  a  surface  phenom 
enon,  makes  a  skin-deep  cut,  and  so  does  the  sage.  The 
rushing  stream  will  not  stop  to  be  observed  :  it  is  the  char 
acteristic  of  insanity  to  hold  fast  to  one  thought,  and  not 
flow  with  the  course  of  Nature.  Nature  can  only  be  con 
ceived  as  existing  to  a  universal  and  not  a  particular  end,  to 
a  universe  of  ends,  and  not  to  one.  She  knows  neither 
palm  nor  oak,  but  only  vegetable  life.  We  can  point  no 
where  to  anything  fined  ;  but  tendency  appears  on  all  hands  ; 
planet,  system,  constellation,  total  nature  is  growing  like  a 
field  of  maize  in  July."  Possessed  for  the  time  by  the 
divine  ecstasy  he  describes,  Emerson  recommends  Nature's 
method  as  a  model  for  frail  man  in  language  of  unsurpassed 
splendor,  and  with  arguments  and  illustrations  appropriate 
to  a  state  of  inspiration,  but  which  might  well  seem  ex 
travagant  in  colder  moods.  Notwithstanding  some  golden 
sayings  fit  for  any  time  and  place,  such  as  "  Do  what  you 
know,  and  perception  is  converted  into  character,"  the  dis 
course  should  as  a  whole  only  be  read  as  it  was  spoken,  in 
the  choicest  hour.  One  is  not  much  surprised  that  the 
worthy  Baptist  minister  who  presided  on  occasion  of  its  de 
livery  prayed  that  the  audience  might  be  preserved  from 
ever  again  hearing  such  transcendental  nonsense.  Emerson 
asked  his  name,  arid  remarked:  u  He  seems  a  very  con 
scientious,  plain-spoken  man." 

The  second  series  of  Emerson's  essays  appeared  in  1844. 
It  may  be  described  as  generally  dealing  with  matters  of 
more  immediate  practical  concern  than  the  first  had  done,  as 
more  ethical  in  spirit,  and  less  rich  in  imagination.  There 
is,  notwithstanding,  no  lack  of  poetry  in  it,  any  more  than 
of  ethic  in  its  forerunner.  "Character"  is  a  discourse  on 
the  text,  "  Character  is  nature  in  the  highest  form."  It 
shows  that  the  recluse  of  Concord  had  a  sound  knowledge  of 


60  LIFE   OF 

life,  and  of  the  conditions  necessary  for  enduring  success 
and  true  greatness.  The  essay  on  "  Experience  "  seems  at 
first  a  singular  discourse  for  a  preacher  of  righteousness. 
It  must  be  regarded  as  an  endeavor  to  atone  for  previous 
over-statements  by  a  frank  recognition  of  the  unmoral 
aspects  of  the  universe.  "  Nature,  as  we  know  her,  is  no 
saint.  The  lights  of  the  church,  the  ascetics,  Gentoos,  and 
Grahamites,  she  does  not  distinguish  by  any  favor.  She 
comes  eating  and  drinking  and  sinning.  Her  darlings,  the 
great,  the  strong,  the  beautiful,  are  not  children  of  our  law, 
do  not  come  out  of  the  Sunday  School,  never  weigh  their 
food,  nor  punctually  keep  the  commandments.  If  we 
would  be  strong  with  her  strength,  we  must  not  harbor 
such  disconsolate  consciences."  The  essay  is  full  of  the 
apparent  contradictions  established  by  experience,  but  con 
cludes  that  experience  indefinitely  protracted  will  reconcile 
all.  "Manners"  insists  on  self-reliance  and  self-respect  as 
the  first  requisites  of  good  manners,  and  eloquently  de 
scribes  the  function  of  woman  in  promoting  them.  "  Our 
American  institutions  have  been  friendly  to  her,  and  at  this 
moment  I  esteem  it  a  chief  felicity  of  this  country,  that  she 
excels  in  women.  Let  her  be  as  much  better  placed  in  the 
laws  and  social  forms  as  the  most  zealous  reformer  can  ask, 
but  I  confide  so  entirely  in  her  aspiring  and  musical  nature, 
that  I  believe  only  herself  can  show  us  how  she  shall  be 
served.  The  wonderful  generosity  of  her  sentiments  raises 
her  at  times  into  heroical  and  godlike  regions,  and  verifies 
the  pictures  of  Minerva,  Juno,  or  Polyhymnia  ;  and  by  the 
firmness  with  which  she  treads  her  upward  path,  she  con 
vinces  the  coarsest  calculators  that  another  road  exists  than 
that  which  their  feet  know.  But  besides  those  who  make 
good  in  our  imagination  the  place  of  muses  and  of  Delphic 
Sibyls,  are  there  not  women  who  fill  our  vase  with  wine  and 
roses  to  the  brim,  so  that  the  wine  runs  over  and  fills  the 
house  with  perfume  ;  who  inspire  us  with  courtesy ;  who 
loose  our  tongues,  and  we  speak  ;  who  anoint  our  eyes,  and 
we  see  ?  We  say  things  we  never  thought  to  have  snid  ;  for 
once  our  walls  of  habitual  reserve  vanish,  and  leave  us  at 
large  ;  we  are  children  playing  with  children  in  a  wide  field 


EMEESOK.  61 

of  flowers.  'Keep  us,'  we  cry,  'in  these  influences,  for 
days,  for  weeks,  and  we  shall  be  sunny  poets,  and  will 
write  out  in  many  colored  words  the  romance  that  you 
are.'  " 

As  might  be  expected  from  a  poet,  the  essay  on 
"  Poetry  "  is  of  special  beauty  and  significance.  The  con 
ception  of  the  poet  and  his  mission  is  of  the  highest. 
"  Poetry  was  all  written  before  time  was,  and  whenever  we 
are  so  finely  organized  that  we  can  penetrate  into  that 
region  where  the  air  is  music,  we  hear  those  primal  war- 
blings,  and  attempt  to  write  them  down  ;  but  we  lose  ever 
and  anon  a  word,  or  a  verse,  and  substitute  something  of 
our  own,  and  thus  mis  write  the  poem."  The  sign  and 
credentials  of  the  poet  are  that  he  announces  "  that  which 
no  man  foretold,"  "  He  is  the  Namer,  or  Language-maker. 
Each  word  was  at  first  a  stroke  of  genius.  Language  is 
fossil  poetry."  "  He  re-attaches  things  to  nature  and  the 
whole."  "  Readers  of  poetry  see  the  factory-village  and 
the  railway,  and  fancy  that  the  poetry  of  the  landscape  is 
broken  up  by  them — for  these  works  of  art  are  not  yet  con 
secrated  in  their  reading;  but  the  poet  sees  them  fall  within 
the  great  order  not  less  than  the  beehive  or  the  spider's 
geometrical  web.  Nature  adopts  them  very  fast  into  her 
vital  circles,  and  the  gliding  train  of  cars  she  loves  like  her 
own."  *  Hence  the  true  American  poet,  when  he  arrives, 
will  make  poetry  of  the  most  unpromising  subjects  : — uour 
log-rolling,  our  stumps  and  their  politics,  our  repudiations, 

*  "Just  then  the  train,  with  shock  on  shock, 

Swift  rush  and  birth-scream  dire, 
Grew  from  the  bosom  of  the  rock, 
And  passed  in  noise  and  fire. 

With  brazen  throb,  with  vital  stroke, 

It  went,  far  heard,  far  seen, 
Setting  a  track  of  shining  smoke 

Against  the  pastoral  green." 

COVENTBY  PATMOEE. 


62  LIFE  OF 

banks,  and  tariffs,  newspaper  and  caucus,  Methodism  and  Uru- 
tarianism  ;"  no  less  than  the  northern  trade,  the  southern 
planting,  Oregon  and  Texas.  "  Thou  true  land-lord  !  sea- 
lord  !  air-lord.  Wherever  sun  falls,  or  waterflows,  or  birds  fly, 
wherever  day  and  night  meet  in  twilight,  wherever  the  blue 
heaven  is  hung  by  clouds  or  sown  with  stars,  wherever  are 
forms  with  transparent  boundaries,  wherever  are  outlets  into 
celestial  space,  wherever  is  danger  and  awe  and  love,  there 
is  beauty,  plenteous  as  rain,  shed  for  thee,  and  though  thou 
shouldst  walk  the  world  over,  thou  slialt  not  be  able  to  find 
a  condition  inopportune  or  ignoble." 

Emerson's  second  series  of  essays  also  appeared  with  a 
preface  from  Carlyle,  treating  this  time  of  the  book  merely 
in  its  aspect  of  literary  property,  perhaps  because  Emerson 
had  apprehended  that  the  former  preface  might  be  "  too 
splendid  for  my  occasion.  I  fancy  my  readers  to  be  a  very 
quiet,  plain,  even  obscure  class — men  and  women  of  some 
religious  culture  and  aspirations — young,  or  else  mystical, 
and  by  no  means  including  the  great  literary  and  fashion 
able  army  who  now  read  your  books."  Carlyle  assured 
him  that  his  public  was  truly  aristocratic ;  being  of  the 
bravest  inquiring  minds  that  England  had.  Among  these 
was  George  Eliot,  who  wrote  of  Carlyle's  first  preface: 
11  This  is  a  world  worth  abiding  in  while  one  man  can  thus 
venerate  and  love  another."  Emerson's  correspondence 
with  Carlyle  had  been  maintained  since  their  first  acquaint 
ance,  though  with  occasional  fluctuations.  Seldom  have 
two  men  conceived  a  more  genuine  and  abiding  regard  for 
each  other  on  the  strength  of  a  single  meeting.  Thanks, 
to  Emerson  in  great  measure,  Carlyle  had  become  an  intel 
lectual  force  in  America,  and  it  was  natural  for  New  En 
gland  to  pit  her  seer  against  her  mother's.  The  contrast  be 
tween  them  was  exhibited  with  equal  wit  and  penetration  in 
Mr.  Russell  Lowell's  "  Fable  for  Critics"  (1848). 

"  There  are  persons,  mole-blind  to  the  soul's  make  and  style, 
Who  insist  on  a  likeness  'twixt  him  and  Carlyle 
To  compare  him  with  Plato  would  be  vastly  fairer, 
Carlyle's  the  more  burly,  but  E.  is  the  rarer ; 


EMERSON.  C 

He  sees  fewer  objects,  but  clearlier,  trulier — 

If  C's.  an  original,  E's.  more  peculiar  ; 

That  he's  more  of  a  man  you  might  say  of  the  one, 

Of  the  other  he's  more  of  an  Emerson  ; 

C's.  the  Titan,  as  shaggy  of  mind  as  of  limb ; 

E's.  the  clear-eyed  Olympian,  rapid  and  slim. 

The  one's  two-thirds  Norseman,  the  other's  half  Greek, 

Where  one's  most  abounding,  the  other's  to  seek  ; 

C's.  generals  require  to  be  seen  in  the  mass, — 

E's.  specialities  gain  if  enlarged  by  the  glass  ; 

C.  gives  nature  and  God  his  own  fits  of  the  blues, 

And  rims  common-sense  things  with  mystical  hues — 

E.  sits  in  a  mystery  calm  and  intense, 

And  looks  coolly  around  him  with  sharp  common-sense ; 

C.  shows  you  how  e very-day  matters  unite 

With  the  dim  transdiurnal  recesses  of  night, — 

While  E.  in  a  plain  preternatural  way 

Makes  mysteries  matters  of  mere  every  day. 

E.  is  rather  like  Flaxman,  lines  straight  and  severe, 

And  a  colorless  outline,  but  full,  round,  and  clear ; 

To  the  men  he  thinks  worthy  he  frankly  accords 

The  design  of  a  white  marble  statue  in  words. 

C.  labors  to  get  at  the  centre,  and  then 

Take  a  reckoning  from  there  of  his  actions  and  men. 

E.  calmly  assumes  the  said  centre  as  granted, 

And,  given  himself,  has  whatever  is  wanted." 

This  may  be  a  suitable  place  to  introduce  a  notice  of 
Emerson's  own  poetry,  as,  although  "uncertain  whether  he 
had  one  true  spark  of  that  fire  which  burns  in  verse,"  he 
was  at  this  period  contributing  poems  freely  to  "  The  Dial," 
and  even  entertaining  proposals  from  publishers  for  a  col 
lected  edition.  The  genius  of  his  verse  is  best  characterized 
by  a  happy  phrase  of  Dr.  Holmes's — it  is  elemental.  It 
stands  in  a  closer  relation  to  Nature  than  that  of  almost  any 
other  poet.  He  has  an  unique  power  of  making  us  partici 
pate  in  the  life  of  Nature  as  it  is  in  Nature  herself,  not  as 
Wordsworth  gives  it,  blended  with  the  reelings  or  at  least 


64  LIFE  OP 

colored  by  the  contemplations  of  humanity.  Such  intimacy 
with  Nature  has  sometimes  all  the  effect  of  magic  ;  there  are 
moments  and  moods  in  which  Emerson  seems  to  have  as  far 
outflown  Wordsworth  as  he  outflew  Thomson  and  Collins. 
But  the  inspiration  is  in  the  highest  degree  fitful  and  frag 
mentary,  and  is  but  seldom  found  allied  with  beautiful  and 
dignified  Art.  The  poems  offend  continually  by  lame  un- 
scannable  lines,  and  clumsinesses  and  obscurities  of  expres 
sion.  Sometimes  the  poet  seems  to  struggle  with  more 
meaning  than  he  knows  how  to  convey  ;  at  other  times  the 
meaning  bears  no  proprotion  to  the  labored  intricacy  of  the 
diction.  When,  however,  he  is  fortunate  enough  to  find  the 
precise  fitting  for  his  idea,  the  result  is  a  diamond  of  the 
purest  water. 

"  Not  from  a  vain  or  shallow  thought 
His  awful  Jove  young  Phidias  wrought  j 
Never  from  lips  of  cunning  fell 
The  thrilling  Delphic  oracle.'7 

"  The  silent  organ  loudest  chants 
The  master's  requiem." 

"  No  ray  is  dimmed,  no  atom  worn, 
My  oldest  force  is  good  as  new ; 
And  the  fresh  rose  on  yonder  thorn 

Gives  back  the  bending  heavens  in  dew." 

"  There  is  no  god  dare  wrong  a  worm." 

11  As  the  wave  breaks  to  foam  on  shelves, 

Then  runs  into  a  wave  again  ; 
So  lovers  melt  their  sundered  selves, 
Yet  melted  would  be  twain." 

"  The  musing  peasant  lowly  great 
Beside  the  forest  water  sate ; 
The  rope-like  pine- roots  crosswise  grown 
Composed  the  network  of  his  throne  j 


EMERSON.  65 

The  wide  lake,  edged  with  sand  and  grass, 
Was  burnished  to  a  floor  of  glass, 
Painted  with  shadows  green  and  proud 
Of  the  tree  and  of  the  cloud." 

ART. 

IN  the  vaunted  works  of  Art 
The  master-stroke  is  Nature's  part. 

GIPSIES. 
THE  wild  air  bloweth  in  our  lungs, 

The  keen  stars  twinkle  in  our  eyes, 
The  birds  gave  us  our  wily  tongues, 

The  panther  in  our  dances  flies. 

You  doubt  we  read  the  stars  on  high, 
Nathless  we  read  your  fortunes  true ; 

The  stars  may  hide  in  the  upper  sky, 
But  without  glass  we  fathom  you. 

TO  EVA. 

O  FAIR  and  stately  maid,  whose  eyes 
Were  kindled  in  the  upper  skies 

At  the  same  torch  that  lighted  mine  ; 
For  so  I  must  interpret  still 
Thy  sweet  dominion  o'er  my  will, 

A  sympathy  divine. 

Ah  !  let  me  blameless  gaze  upon 
Features  that  seem  at  heart  my  own  ; 

Nor  fear  those  watchful  sentinels, 
Who  charm  the  more  their  glance  forbids, 
Chaste-glowing,  underneath  their  lids, 

With  fire  that  draws  while  it  repels. 

On  the  whole,  Emerson  the  poet  presents  a  singular  con- 
trast  to  Emerson  the  thinker  and  orator.  As  the  latter  he 
is  potent,  epoch-making,  the  morning  star  of  a  new  era,  both 
literary  and  intellectual.  As  a  poet  he  is  the  lovely,  way. 

& 


66  LIFE  OF 

ward  child  of  the  American  Parnassus,  more  fascinating  and 
captivating  than  his  elders  and  betters,  and  nearer  by  many 
degrees  to  the  central  source  of  inspiration  ;  but  beautiful 
rather  than  strong,  and  ever  in  need  of  allowance  and  ex 
cuse.  Could  he  have  always  written  with  the  mastery  he 
shows  in  detached  passages,  he  would  have  stood  in  a  class 
by  himself.  Some  few  of  his  poems  are  actual  models  of 
perfection,  as,  for  instance,  the  lines  in  the  dedication  of  the 
Concord  monument ;  but  here,  as  Dr.  Holmes  remarks,  his 
originality  of  style  has  forsaken  him,  and  he  writes  in  the 
manner  of  Campbell.  Another  noble  poem  quoted  by  Dr. 
Holmes — "  Days  " — would  certainly  have  been  given  to 
Landor  if  it  had  not  been  signed  by  Emerson.  There  are, 
however,  pieces  of  faultless  perfection  entirely  in  the  Emer 
sonian  style.  Such  a  piece  is  the  u  Rhodora,"  worthy  of 
the  Greek  Anthology  : 

"  In  May,  when  sea- winds  pierced  our  solitudes, 
I  found  the  fresh  Rhodora  in  the  woods, 
Spreading  its  leafless  blooms  in  a  damp  nook, 
To  please  the  desert  and  the  sluggish  brook. 
The  purple  petals,  fallen  in  the  pool, 
Made  the  black  water  with  their  beauty  gay ; 
Here  might  the  red-bird  come  his  plumes  to  cool, 
And  court  the  flower  that  cheapens  his  array. 
Rhodora  !  if  the  sages  ask  thee  why 
This  charm  is  wasted  on  the  earth  and  sky, 
Tell  them,  dear,  that  if  eyes  were  made  for  seeing, 
Then  Beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being: 
Why  thou  wert  there,  O  rival  of  the  rose  ! 
I  never  thought  to  ask,  I  never  knew, 
But  in  my  simple  ignorance,  suppose 
The  self-same  Power  that  brought  me  there  brought  you.'1 

Almost  equally  finished,  and  gushing  from  a  yet  deeper 
well-spring  of  feeling,  is  the  mystic  yet  transparent  allegory 
entitled  "  Two  Rivers  "  : 


EMEKSON.  07 

"  Thy  summer  voice,  Musketaquifc, 
Repeats  the  music  of  the  rain  ; 
But  sweeter  rivers  pulsing  flit 

Through  thee,  as  thou  through  Concord  Plaifl, 

Thou  in  thy  narrow  banks  are  pent ; 

The  stream  I  love  unbounded  goes  : 
Through  flood  and  sea  and  firmament, 

Through  light,  through  life,  it  forward  flows. 

I  see  the  inundation  sweet, 

I  hear  the  spending  of  the  stream 
Through  years,  through  men,  through  Nature  fleet, 

Through  passing  thought,  through  power  and  dream. 

Musketaquit,  a  goblin  strong, 

Of  shard  and  flint  makes  jewels  gay  ; 
They  lose  their  grief  who  hear  his  song, 

And  where  he  winds  is  the  day  of  day. 

So  forth  and  brighter  fares  my  stream, — 

Who  drinks  it  shall  not  thirst  again  ; 
No  darkness  stains  its  equal  gleam, 

And  ages  drop  in  it  like  rain.' 

Such  music  and  such  power  of  spiritualizing  material  Na 
ture  would  have  vindicated  a  high  place  for  a  more  faulty 
poet  than  Emerson  :  but  his  claims  rest  by  no  means  solely 
even  on  these  high  gifts.  The  Runic,  Orphic,  mystic,  and 
aphoristic  element  in  his  poetry,  though  there  is  too  much 
of  it,  is  still  an  original  arid  valuable  element.  He  always 
means  something,  and  his  meaning  is  always  worth  trying 
to  penetrate.  Better  still,  he  always  sings  something  :  his 
verse,  good  or  bad,  is  poetry  ;  he  does  not,  like  some  greater 
poets,  chequer  his  inspired  moods  with  commonplace  or  mere 
literary  elegances.  But  after  all  it  is  his  greatest  glory  as  a 
poet  to  have  been  the  harbinger  of  distinctively  American 
poetry  to  America : 

"  He  was  the  first  that  ever  burst 
Into  that  silent  sea." 


68  LIFE  OF 

Emerson  hesitated  over  the  publication  of  his  poems  for 
four  years.  He  had  come,  as  he  said  himself,  "  to  a  solstice 
of  the  stars  of  his  intellectual  firmament,"  and  though  he 
retained  freshness  enough  to  write  "  Representative  Men  " 
to  be  noticed  subsequently,  felt  the  need  not  only  for  change, 
but  for  a  more  thorough  change  than  he  could  find  in 
America.  He  had  pretty  well  gone  through  all  the  fermen 
tations  and  combinations  of  which  American  intellectual 
life  was  then  susceptible,  and  began  to  think  that  lie  needed 
the  stimulus  of  an  English  audience.  He  was  dimly  con 
scious  of  something  provincial  in  his  reputation.  The  very 
enthusiasm  he  had  excited  half-frightened  him.  u  In  the 
acceptance  that  my  papers  find  among  my  thoughtful 
countrymen  in  these  days,  I  cannot  help  seeing  how  limited 
is  their  reading.  Tf  they  read  only  the  books  that  I  do, 
they  would  not  exaggerate  so  wildly."  With  his  usual 
delicacy,  lie  breathed  no  hint  of  his  inclination  to  Carlyle, 
fearing  that  an  audience  might  be  artificially  collected  for 
him.  But  when,  in  1846,  invitations  came  from  various 
English  Mechanics'  Institutes,  he  accepted  them  with  hope 
and  pleasure.  The  prime  mover  was  his  old  friend  Mr. 
Alexander  Ireland,  "  infinitely  well  affected  towards  the 
man  Emerson."  Feeling  himself  safe  in  strong,  sure  hands, 
Emerson  sailed  for  Liverpool  in  the  Washington  Irving 
(name  of  fair  omen  !  )  October  5,  1847. 

Emerson  as  has  been  seen,  believed  in  the  inward  light. 
He  thought  a  man  needed  but  to  keep  himself  open  to  the 
Divine  influences  to  have  his  life  happily  moulded  for  him, 
and  his  creed  appeared  justified  by  his  experience. 

"  Early  or  late,  the  falling  rain 
Arrived  in  time  to  swell  the  grain  ; 
Stream  could  not  so  perversely  wind, 
But  corn  of  Guy's  there  was  to  grind." 

The  Divine  blessing,  indeed,  rarely  took  in  his  case  the 
form  of  money,  but  intellectual  events  came  as  they  were 
wanted,  and,  unless  when  in  the  fulfilment  of  an  obligation 
of  courtesy  or  conscience  he  took  upon  himself  some  ex- 


EMERSON.  69 

Iraneous  task  like  the  editorship  of  "  The  Dial,"  every 
thing  happened  at  the  right  moment  for  the  furtherance  of 
the  inner  soul  and  the  external  end.  His  well-timed  visit 
to  England  was  a  case  in  point.  His  celebrity  was  just  in 
the  stage  to  render  him  an  object  of  interest,  without 
rendering  him  an  object  of  adulation.  There  was  enough 
curiosity  respecting  him  to  warrant  the  best  efforts  of  his 
devoted  friend  Mr.  Ireland  to  gain  him  a  hearing,  and  not 
enough  to  tempt  a  contractor  to  vulgarize  him  by  ;' run 
ning  "  him.  He  came  simply  and  modestly  to  proffer  his 
thoughts  to  those  who  cared  for  them,  and  to  take  in  return 
the  impressions  derived  from  the  study  of  a  polished  society 
and  a  social  order  venerable  and  stable,  yet  in  process  of 
transformation.  England,  on  her  part,  was  in  a  more  con 
genial  humor  towards  a  man  of  optimistic  faith  than  she 
had  ever  been  before,  or  has  ever  been  since. 

On  landing  at  Liverpool  on  October  22nd,  Emerson 
found  an  invitation  from  Carlyle.  He  proceeded  to  London, 
and  found  the  Carlyles  very  little  changed  in  appearance 
from  their  old  selves  of  fourteen  years  before.  Spiritual 
progress  there  had  been,  not  change,  for  Carlyle  had 
travelled  as  steadily  on  his  own  line  as  Emerson  had,  and 
their  progress  had  been  in  different  directions.  They  might 
be  compared  to  two  streams  which,  rising  on  the  same 
mountain  crest,  gush  down  opposite  steeps,  and  diverge  the 
more  the  further  they  wend  their  way.  The  central  idea 
of  each  was  alike — the  Divine  Immanence  in  all  things ; 
but,  to  employ  Heine's  convenient  generalization,  one  pre 
sented  it  like  a  Hebrew,  the  other  like  a  Greek.  His  aver 
sion  to  Emersonianism  equalled  his  love  of  Emerson  ;  it  is 
a  proof  of  his  sincerity  of  his  love  that  it  survived  such 
estrangement.  "  We  had  immense  talking  with  him  here," 
he  writes,  "  but  find  that  he  did  not  give  us  much  to  chew 
the  cud  upon.  He  is  a  pure,  high-minded  man,  but  I  think 
his  talent  is  not  quite  as  high  as  I  had  anticipated."  At 
another  time  he  says,  "  Good  of  him  I  could  get  none, 
except  from  his  friendly  looks  and  elevated,  exotic,  polite 
ways."  Emerson  could  not  be  expected  to  shine  in  con 
versation  with  the  first  talker  of  his  age  ;  even  if,  which  ifli 


70  LIFE  OF 

improbable,  he  was  allowed  the  chance.  His  was  not  an 
exuberant  mind.  The  habit  of  nicely  fitting  his  thought 
with  the  one  right  word  in  his  public  utterances  made  him 
hesitate  in  ordinary  conversation,  and  grew  upon  him  until 
*'  to  hear  him  talk,"  says  Dr.  Holmes,  u  was  like  watching  one 
crossing  a  brook  on  stepping-stones."  He  the  more  admired  the 
affluent  discourse  of  the  apostle  of  Silence,  which  he  classed 
as  one  of  the  four  things  that  had  most  impressed  him  in 
Europe.  "  You  will  never  discover,"  he  told  Mrs.  Emer 
son,  u  his  real  vigor  and  range,  or  how  much  more  he  might 
do  than  he  has  ever  done,  without  seeing  him." 

Invitations  to  lecture  crowded  on  Emerson,  until  he  felt 
ashamed  to  read  yet  again  "the  musty  old  discourses  so  often 
reported."  But  managers  and  audiences  would  have  no 
other.  Making  Manchester  his  headquarters,  he  ranged 
over  all  the  northern  and  midland  counties,  acquainting 
himself  in  the  most  agreeable  manner  possible  with  the 
flower  of  English  middle  class  culture,  and  rejoicing  in  the 
proof  thus  afforded  that  here,  as  at  home,  he  had  beguiled 
young  people  into  better  hopes  than  he  could  realize  for 
them.  He  had  formed  his  conception  of  De  Quincey  from 
the  u  voluminous  music  "of  his  writings,  and  expected  a 
presence  and  an  elocution  "  like  the  organ  of  York 
Minster."  He  saw  and  heard  "  a  small  old  man  of  seventy 
years  (De  Quincey  was  sixty-two),  with  a  very  handsome 
face,  expressing  the  highest  refinement;  a  very  gentle  old 
man,  speaking  with  the  greatest  deliberation  and  softness, 
and  so  refined  in  speech  and  manners  as  to  make  quite  in 
different  his  extremely  plain  and  poor  dress."  He  after 
wards  dined  at  De  Quincey's  cottage  with  him  and  his  three 
admirable  daughters,  and  laments,  as  we  do,  that  time  failed 
to  record  the  conversation.  Jeffrey  he  found  very  French 
and  rather  affected  ;  and  Professor  Wilson's  lectures  to  his 
class  seemed  to  him  to  call  into  exercise  more  strength  of 
body  than  of  mind.  He  seems  to  have  been  especially  im 
pressed  by  Leigh  Hunt,  whom,  along  with  De  Quincey,  he 
thought  the  finest  mannered  man  of  letters  in  England  ;  by 
Macaulay,  in  whom  he  rightly  discerned  the  nearest 
approximation  among  them  all  to  the  typical  Englishman, 


EMERSON.  Tl 

Incarnating  the  differentia  of  the  race  ;  and  by  Owen,  whom 
he  with  equal  justice  pronounced  "  one  of  the  best  heads  in 
England."  "  Richard  Owen,"  he  says  in  the  "  Traits," 
''adds  sometimes  the  divination  of  the  old  masters  to  the 
unbroken  power  of  labor  in  the  English  mind."  Emerson 
started  for  a  trip  to  Paris,  where  he  arrived  just  in  time 
for  the  abortive  revolution  of  May  loth.  The  terrible  days 
of  June  were  preparing,  but  in  the  meantime  Paris  showed 
bravely,  crowded  with  sashes  and  helmets  and  men  bearded 
like  goats  or  lions  ;  full  too  of  living  fire,  and,  as  Emerson 
thought,  of  genuine  passion  for  justice  and  humanity.  He 
afterwards  said  that  the  French  had  best  discussed  what 
other  nations  had  best  done.  He  had  just  been  inspecting 
a  very  different  place — Oxford,  where  seeds  of  thought 
were  quietly  germinating,  destined  perhaps  to  produce 
greater  results  than  the  brilliant  demonstrativeness  of  Paris. 
The  new  Liberalism  was  for  the  moment  represented  for 
Emerson  by  two  young  men  whose  fellowships  even  then 
hung  by  a  hair — Clough,  whom  his  writings  had  deeply  im 
pressed,  and  Froude,  «» a  noble  youth,  to  whom  my  heart 
warms."  Froude  was  greatly  struck  by  his  resemblance  to 
Newman,  which  is  indeed  undeniable,  and  goes  deeper  than 
the  physical  likeness.  It  is  a  curious  speculation  what 
would  have  happened  if  the  two  could  have  changed  places. 
Cou\d  Newman  have  found  his  way  to  Rome  from  Massa 
chusetts  ?  What  tints  would  Emerson's  spiritualism  have 
imbibed  from  the  painted  windows  of  Oxford  ?  Somewhat 
later  he  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Strat ford-on -Avon  with  a 
party  from  Coventry,  among  them  a  very  plain  young  wom 
an  who  told  him  that  she  liked  Rousseau's  "  Confessions" 
best  of  all  books.  He  started  ;  then  said,  "  So  do  I ; "  and 
the  plain  young  woman  wrote  next  day  that  the  American 
stranger  was  the  one  real  man  she  had  seen.  He  had  had 
his  first  and  last  meeting  with  George  Eliot. 

Emerson  had  all  but  decided  not  to  lecture  in  London, 
but  "  came  to  have  a  feeling  that  not  to  do  it  would  be  a 
kind  of  skulking."  He  seems  to  have  felt  instinctively  that, 
while  in  the  provinces  he  was  heard  with  serious,  almost 
reverential  interest,  in  London  he  was  only  regarded  as  the 


72  LIFE  OF 

last  sensation,  and  the  more  so  the  more  aristocratic  hi* 
audience.  He  nevertheless  paid  the  intellectual  capital  the 
compliment  of  preparing  three  new  discourses  on  "  The 
Natural  History  of  the  Intellect,"  which,  with  two  old  ones 
and  that  composed  for  Edinburgh,  made  up  a  course  under 
the  title  of  "  Mind  and  Manners  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen 
tury."  Carlyle  took  a  lively  interest  in  the  course,  and 
Emerson  was  pleased  to  observe  how  much  he  was  looked 
at.  The  London  reporters  fell  far  behind  their  Manches 
ter  brethren  in  fulness  and  accuracy,  and  though  Emerson 
writes,  "  Our  little  company  grows  larger  each  day,"  the 
lectures  seem  to  have  produced  no  great  effect  beyond  the 
walls  of  the  Marylebone  Institute.  Men's  minds,  besidei, 
were  abundantly  occupied  with  more  exciting  themes  :  and 
the  net  pecuniary  product  was  only  £80  instead  of  the 
promised  £200.  In  "  English  Traits  "  published  in  1856, 
Emerson  has  matched  himself  with  the  English  people,  and 
both  are  upon  their  trial.  Could  an  idealist  display  true 
insight  in  dealing  with  so  practical  a  nation  ?  Could  so 
material  a  civilization  stand  the  criticism  of  an  idealist  ? 
England  and  Emerson  both  came  well  out  of  the  ordeal. 
He  cannot  help  setting  down  the  English  intelligence  as 
somewhat  beefy  and  obtuse,  for  such  is  the  fact.  But  he 
does  not,  like  Hawthorne,  resent  the  phenomenon  as  an 
affront  to  the  foreign  observer  :  he  finds  in  this  stiff  soil  the 
substratum  of  fine  qualities,  and  boldly  declares  that  the  in 
tellect  of  England  owes  more  to  Plato  than  to  Aristotle. 
The  solidity  of  the  English  is  no  doubt  the  great  primal  fact 
with  him.  "  I  find  the  Englishman  to  be  him  of  all  men 
who  stands  firmest  in  his  shoes."  Practicality,  veracity, 
conservatism,  all  the  traits  too  plain  to  be  missed,  are  fully- 
recognized.  But  when  he  comes  to  literature  he  pronounces 
that  the  two  nations  in  England  of  whom  so  much  has  been 
written  are  not  the  Norman  and  the  Saxon,  nor  the  Poor 
and  the  Rich,  but  "  the  perceptive  class  and  the  practical 
finality  class,  ever  in  counterpoise,  interacting  mutually  : 
these  two  nations,  of  genius  and  of  animal  force,  though  the 
first  consist  only  of  a  dozen  souls,  and  the  second  of  twenty 
'«r  *jver  b;  discord  and  their  accord  yield  the 


EMERSON.  73 

power  of  the  English  state."  u  Even  what  is  called  philos 
ophy  and  letters  is  mechanical  in  its  structure,  as  if  inspira 
tion  had  ceased,  as  if  no  vast  hope,  no  religion,  no  song  of 
joy,  no  wisdom,  no  analogy,  existed  any  more."  "  English 
science  is  false  by  not  being  poetic.  It  isolates  the  reptile 
or  the  mollusc  it  strives  to  explain  ;  whilst  reptile  or  mol 
lusc  only  exists  in  system,  in  relation.'* 

Emerson's  book  sparkles  with  epigrams  such  as  these  : — 
"  There  should  be  temperance  in  making  cloth,  as  well  as  in 
eating.  A  man  should  not  be  a  silkworm,  nor  a  nation  a 
tent  of  caterpillars."  "  The  lawyer  lies  perdu  under  the 
coronet,  and  winks  to  the  antiquary  to  sav  nothing."  "  The 
upper  classes  have  only  birth,  say  the  people  here,  and  not 
thoughts.  Yes,  but  they  have  manners."  "  Loyalty  is  in 
the  English  a  sub-religio-n."  "  When  the  Englisman  wishes 
for  amusement  he  goes  to  work."  u  There  is  in  an  English 
man's  brain  a  valve  that  can  be  closed  at  pleasure,  as  an 
engineer  shuts  off  steam.  The  most  sensible  and  well-in 
formed  men  possess  the  power  of  thinking  just  so  far  as  the 
bishop  in  religious  matters."  Carlyle  said  that  "  English 
Traits  "  was  worth  all  the  books  ever  written  by  New  En 
gland  upon  the  Old  ;  and  in  it  England  assuredly  imported 
from  her  descendants  much  better  ware  than  anything  of  its 
class  that  she  had  exported  to  them,  except  Sir  Charles 
LyelPs.  Emerson's,  discourses  on  "  Representative  Men," 
first  delivered  in  1845,  though  not  published  till  1850,  ex 
hibit  a  greater  tendency  to  the  oracular  than  anything  writ 
ten  before  or  afterwards.  The  first  lecture,  "  The  Uses  of 
Great  Men,"  is  obscure  in  the  only  sense  in  which  obscurity 
is  justly  imputable  to  Emerson.  It  is  a  succession  of  say 
ings,  for  the  most  part  individually  comprehensible  and 
sometimes  of  stimulating  freshness,  but  so  abrupt  and  dis* 
continuous  that  we  find  ourselves  landed  at  last  in  Emer 
son's  favorite  conclusion  with  but  slight  idea  how  we  have 
arrived  at  it.  Genius  "  appears  as  an  exponent  of  a  vaster 
mind  and  will.  The  opaque  self  becomes  transparent  with 
the  light  of  a  First  Cause."  It  is  the  purpose  of  the  re~ 
maining  lectures  to  resolve  this  pure  ray  of  primal  intellect 
into  the  sixfold  spectrum  of  philosopher,  mystic,  sceptio? 


74  LIFE   OP 

poet,  man  of  the  world,  and  writer;  respectively  personified 
by  Plato,  Swedenborg,  Montaigne,  Shakespeare,  Napoleon, 
and  Goethe.  Here  we  find  Emerson's  success  to  be  pro 
portioned  to  his  hold  on  concrete  fact.  The  figure  of  Plato, 
of  whose  personality  so  little  is  known,  is,  as  Carlyle  com 
plains,  vague  and  indefinite.  "  Can  you  tell  me,"  asked  an 
auditor  of  his  neighbor,  "  what  connection  all  this  has  with 
Plato  ?  *''  "  None,  my  friend,  save  in  God  !  "  But  the 
other  figures  are  visible  if  not  palpable.  Nothing  can  be 
more  generous  than  his  trampling  down  of  prejudice  in  rec 
ognizing  the  true  inspiration  of  Swedenborg,  or  more 
crushing  than  his  criticism  of  the  merely  mechanical  ele 
ment  in  that  seer.  "  When  he  mounts  into  the  heaven  1  do 
not  hear  its  language.  A  man  should  not  tell  me  that  he 
has  walked  among  the  angels  ;  his  proof  is  that  his  eloquence 
makes  me  one."  The  lecture  on  Montaigne  teaches  that  a 
wise  scepticism  leads  to  the  same  result  as  a  large  faith. 
4t  The  lesson  of  life  is  to  believe  what  the  years  and  the 
centuries  say  against  the  hours.  Things  seem  to  tend 
downward,  to  justify  despondency,  to  promote  rogues,  to  de 
feat  the  just;  and  by  knaves,  as  by  martyrs,  the  just  cause 
is  carried  forward.  Let  a  man  learn  to  look  for  the  per 
manent  in  the  mutable  and  fleeting ;  let  him  learn  to  bear 
the  disappearance  of  things  he  was  wont  to  reverence  with 
out  losing  his  reverence  ;  let  him  learn  that  he  is  here,  not 
to  work,  but  to  be  worked  upon  ;  and  that  though  abyss 
open  under  abyss,  and  opinion  displace  opinion,  all  are  at 
last  contained  in  the  Eternal  Cause."  The  discussion  on 
Napoleon  shows  Emerson  at  his  best  as  a  connoisseur  of 
men,  and  would  alone  prove  that  he  did  not  addict  himself 
to  speculation  out  of  incapacity  or  contempt  for  the  affairs 
of  the  world.  The  ideologist  judges  the  man  of  action 
more  shrewedly  and  justly  than  the  man  of  action  would 
have  judged  the  ideologist ;  and  after  having  most  brilliantly 
painted  Napoleon's  perfect  sufficiency  in  all  things  for  which 
virtue  is  not  needful,  puts  him  on  his  right  footing  with, 
"  Bonaparte  is  the  idol  of  common  men,  because  he  had  in 
transcendent  degree  the  qualities  and  the  powers  of  common 
men."  On  Goethe  and  Shakespeare  Emerson  says  many 


EMERSON.  T5 

excellent  things,  but  the  former's  activity  is  too  multifarious 
to  be  condensed  into  a  lecture,  though  the  man  himself  is 
got  into  a  sentence:  "The  old  Eternal  Genius  who  built 
the  world  has  confided  himself  more  to  this  man  than  to 
any  other" — and  of  Shakespeare  he  wrote  :  "  The  greatest 
mind  values  him  the  most." 

Theodore  Parker  was  at  that  time  Editor  of  the  "  Massa 
chusetts  Quarterly."  The  main  function  of  the  great  radi 
cal  preacher  is  thus  defined  by  Emerson,  with  no  less  truth 
than  eloquence  :  "  His  commanding  merit  as  a  reformer  is 
this,  that  he  insisted  beyond  all  men  in  pulpits  that  the  es 
sence  of  Christianity  is  its  practical  morals  :  it  is  there  for 
use,  or  it  is  nothing;  and  if  you  combine  it  with  sharp 
trading,  or  with  ordinary  city  ambitions  to  gloss  over  munic 
ipal  corruptions,  or  private  intemperance,  or  successful 
fraud,  or  immoral  politics,  or  unjust  wars,  or  the  cheating  of 
Indians,  or  the  robbery  of  frontier  nations,  or  leaving  your 
principles  at  home  to  show  on  the  high  seas  or  in  Europe  a 
supple  complaisance  to  tyrants,  it  is  an  hypocrisy,  and  the 
truth  is  not  in  you  ;  and  no  love  of  religious  music,  or  of 
dreams  of  Swedenborg,  or  praise  of  John  Wesley  or  of 
Jeremy  Taylor,  can  save  you  from  the  Satan  which  you  are." 

In  his  only  contribution  to  the  "  Quarterly  "  (Dec.  1847) 
Emerson  says  he  will  not  believe  that  so  stupendous  a 
phenomenon  as  the  American  Republic  can  have  been  called 
into  being  for  nothing.  "  Moral  and  material  values  are 
always  commensurate.  Every  material  organization  exists 
to  a  moral  end,  which  makes  the  reason  of  its  existence. 
Here  are  no  books,  but  who  can  see  the  continent  with  its 
inland  and  surrounding  waters,  its  temperate  climates,  its  west 
wind  breathing  vigor  through  all  the  year,  its  confluence  of 
races  so  favorable  to  the  highest  energy,  and  the  infinite 
glut  of  their  production,  without  putting  new  questions  to 
Destiny  as  to  the  purpose  for  which  this  muster  of  nations 
and  this  sudden  creation  of  enormous  values  is  made  ? " 
The  questions  with  which  a  journal  aspiring  to  leadership 
must  deal  are  indicated  with  admirable  exactness,  among 
them  slavery,  "  in  some  sort  the  special  enigma  of  the  time, 


76  LIFE  OF 

as   it  has  provoked  against  it  a  sort  of  inspiration  and  en 
thusiasm  singular  in  modern  history." 

Another  ally  of  those  days,  much  nearer  than  Parker, 
was  Henry  Thoreau,  in  whom  Emerson  took  half-paternal, 
half-fraternal  interest.  Without  him  Thoreau  might  never 
have  existed  as  the  hermit-poet  of  Walden. 

In  Emerson's  funeral  tribute  to  Thoieau,  he  says:  "It 
seems  a  kind  of  indignity  to  so  noble  a  soul  that  it  should 
depart  out  of  Nature  before  yet  he  has  been  really  shown  to 
his  peers  for  what  he  is.  But  he,  at  least,  is  content.  His 
soul  was  made  for  the  noblest  society ;  he  had  in  a  short 
life  exhausted  the  capabilities  of  this  world  ;  wherever  there 
is  knowledge,  wherever  there  is  virtue,  wherever  there  is 
beauty,  he  will  find  a  home." 

On  July  16,  1850,  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli  was  drowned, 
with  her  husband  and  child,  on  her  return  from  Italy,  after 
sitting  for  twelve  hours  on  the  stranded  wreck  amid  driving 
rain,  in  sight  of  the  coast  and  of  sundry  persons  too  dili 
gently  picking  up  whatever  came  ashore  to  busy  themselves 
in  procuring  a  lifeboat.  To  find  such  another  contrast 
of  dying  or  dead  genius  in  presence  of  dull,  soulless  inhu 
manity,  we  must  go  to  memoirs  of  the  "  realistic  "  school  of 
biography.  Emerson  exclaimed,  "  I  have  lost  my  audi 
ence  !  "  He  could  not  honestly  say  more,  for  his  nature 
and  Margaret's,  though  by  no  means  antipathetic,  were 
hardly  congenial.  Her  part  had  been  that  of  the  ardent 
mistress,  and  his  the  cold  beauty's.  Failing  in  her  attempts 
to  gain  his  confidence  by  storm,  she  cried,  "Why  do  I 
write  thus  to  one  who  must  ever  regard  the  deepest  tones  of 
my  nature  as  those  of  childish  fancy  or  worldly  discontent?" 
Emerson  could  never  feel  at  home  outside  his  own  sphere 
whether  of  thought  or  affection  :  it  was  impossible,  there 
fore,  that  there  should  not  be  something  of  constraint  in  his 
portion  of  the  biography  which,  two  years  after  Margaret's 
death,  appeared  as  the  joint  production  of  her  most  intimate 
friends.  Yet,  having  helped  himself,  by  reminiscenes  of 
conversation  and  quotations  from  correspondence,  over  the 
intellectual  region  of  Margaret's  nature,  into  which  he 
entered  but  imperfectly,  he  kindles  up  when  at  last  he 


EMEKSON,  77 

com  us  to  the  generous  helpful  woman,  who  went  straight 
from  a  wedding  to  attend  a  relative  undergoing  a  surgi 
cal  operation,  and  who,  when  in  after  years  she  found  scope 
for  the  exercise  of  all  her  love  and  devotion  in  Italy, 
"  came  to  it  as  if  it  had  been  her  habit  and  her  natural 
sphere." 

It  is  a  shrewd  remark  of  Arbuthnot's,  that  all  political 
parties  die  at  last  of  swallowing  their  own  lies.  The  slave- 
holders  had  gone  on  asserting  the  divinity  of  slavery  until 
they  believed  it.  Their  growing  insolence  and  brutality, 
culminating  in  the  attempt  to  strangle  free  suffrage  in  Kan 
sas,  and  the  ruffianly  assault  on  Charles  Surnner  in  the  Sen 
ate  House  as  he  sat  writing  at  his  desk,  made  Emerson  an 
Abolitionist.  He  had  clung  to  conservatism  as  long  as  pos 
sible.  The  annexation  of  Texas  (1845)  had  not  perturbed 
him ;  he  saw  it  to  be  inevitable,  and  was  content  if  his  own 
State  held  fast  her  integrity.  Even  in  resisting  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Law  (1850)  he  had  said,  "  We  will  never  inter 
meddle  with  your  slavery,  but  you  can  \n  no  wise  be  suf 
fered  to  bring  it  to  Cape  Cod  or  Berkshire."  The  South 
had  now  made  this  attitude  impossible,  but  her  truculence 
seemed  to  Emerson  pardonable  in  comparison  with  the  moral 
torpor  of  his  own  beloved  Massachusetts.  He  was  himself 
twice  hissed  at  public  meetings  by  descendants  of  the  Pil 
grim  Fathers.  Smarting  with  grief  and  shame,  he,  for  a 
time,  forgot  his  accustomed  moderation,  lauded  John 
Brown's  incendiarism,  and  appeared  to  blame  the  judges  for 
not  assuming  the  functions  of  legislators.  At  last,  however, 
the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter  made  everything  right.  Up 
holders  and  antagonists  of  slavery  shook  hands  over  the 
Union  ;  the  logic  of  events  converted  every  loyal  citizen  to 
emancipation  as  at  least  a  sound  military  measure  ;  and,  as 
Emerson  said,  "  The  wish  that  never  had  legs  long  enough 
to  cross  the  Potomac  can  do  so  now."  He  himself,  now 
as  good  a  civic  patriot  as  anybody,  was  ever  ready  with 
speech  and  song.  "  Voluntaries,"  pieces  written  to  en 
courage  the  young  to  enlist  for  the  war,  contain  this  noble 
stanza— 


78  LIFE  OF 

*'  So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 
When  Duty  whispers  low,  Thou  must, 
The  youth  replies,  Jean." 

Emerson's  elocution  has  been  frequently  described,  and 
most  hearers  attest  its  magical  effect.  It  was,  or  seemed, 
the  purest  natural  endowment  ;  if  it  owed  anything  to  art, 
it  was  the  ars  celare.  It  gave  the  impression  of  utter  ab 
sorption  in  the  theme,  and  indifference  to  all  rhetoric  and 
all  oratorical  stratagem.  Composed  and  undemonstrative 
as  any  listener,  almost  motionless,  except  for  a  slight  vibra 
tion  of  the  body,  seldom  even  adapting  his  voice  to  his  mat 
ter,  he  seemed  to  confide  entirely  in  the  justness  of  his 
thought,  the  felicity  of  his  language,  and  the  singular  music 
of  his  voice.  "  He  somehow,"  Mr.  Lowell  says,  "  managed 
to  combine  the  charm  of  unpremeditated  discourse  with  the 
visible  existence  of  carefully  written  manuscript  lying  before 
him  on  the  desk  ;  and  while  reciting  an  oration  strictly  com 
mitted  to  memory,  lie  had  the  air  of  fetching  inspiration 
from  the  clouds."  If  these  were  artifices,  they  did  not 
seem  so.  A  shrewd  judge,  Anthony  Trollope,  was  particu 
larly  struck  with  the  note  of  sincerity  in  Emerson  when  he 
heard  him  address  a  large  meeting  during  the  Civil  War. 
Not  only  was  the  speaker  terse,  perspicuous,  and  practical 
to  a  degree  amazing  to  Mr.  Trollope's  preconceived  notions, 
but  he  commanded  his  hearers'  respect  by  the  frankness  of 
his  dealing  with  them.  "You  make  much  of  the  American 
eagle,"  he  said,  "you  do  well.  But  beware  of  the  Ameri 
can  peacock."  When  shortly  afterwards  Mr.  Trollope 
heard  the  consummate  rhetorician,  Edward  Everett,  he  dis 
cerned  at  once  that  oratory  was  an  end  with  him,  instead  of, 
as  with  Emerson,  a  means.  "  He  was  neither  bold  nor  hon 
est,  as  Emerson  had  been,"  and  the  people 'knew  that  while 
pretending  to  lead  them  he  was  led  by  them. 

Emerson  was  a  connoisseur  in  style,  and  said  there  never 
had  been  a  time  when  he  would  have  refused  the  offer  of  a 
professorship  of  rhetoric  at  his  Alma  Mater.  The  secret  of 
his  own  method  is  incommunicable  ;  for  it  is  even  truer  in 


EMERSON.  79 

his  case  than  in  Carlyle's  that  the  style  is  the  man.  To 
write  as  Emerson,  one  must  be  an  Emerson.  His  precepts, 
nevertheless,  may  be  studied  by  artists  in  all  literary  man 
ners.  They  seem  especially  aimed  at  the  crying  sin  of 
nineteenth-century  authorship,  its  diffuseriess.  He  insisted 
on  the  importance  of  "  the  science  of  omitting,  which  exalts 
every  syllable."  A  good  writer  must  convey  the  feeling 
of  "  chemic  selection  "  as  well  as  of  il  flamboyant  richness." 
One  practical  counsel  is  to  read  aloud  what  you  have  writ 
ten  to  discover  what  sentences  drag.  "  Blot  them  out  and 
read  again,  and  you  will  find  what  words  drag.  If  you 
use  a  word  for  a  fraction  of  its  meaning,  it  must  drag.  It 
is  like  a  pebble  inserted  in  a  mosaic.  Blot  out  the  superla 
tives,  the  negatives,  the  dismals,  the  adjectives,  and  very. 
And,  finally,  see  that  you  have  not  omitted  the  word  which 
the  piece  was  written  to  state."  In  the  controversy  be 
tween  classic  and  romantic  art,  he  took  the  side  of  the  for 
mer,  which  seemed  to  him  organic,  while  romanticism  ap 
peared  capricious.  But  he  did  not  regard  this  as  a  ques 
tion  between  ancients  and  moderns  ;  the  antique  was  always 
with  us. 

The  discourses  of  these  later  years  form  three  volumes, 
"Conduct  of  Life"  (1860);  "Society  and  Solitude" 
(1870);  "Letters  and  Social  Aims"  (1875);  the  latter 
collection  pieced  together  in  Emerson's  old  age  with  Mr. 
Cabot's  aid,  by  combining  passages  selected  from  different 
lectures,  so  slight  was  the  logical  connection  of  Emerson's 
thought.  These  writings  indicate  a  period  of  diminished 
mental  activity,  but  not  of  decay.  They  may  be  compared 
in  this  respect  to  the  later  works  of  Wordsworth.  The  au 
thor  is  not  mechanically  repeating  the  inspirations  of  happier 
hours,  still  less  endeavoring  to  simulate  originality  by  ex 
travagance  ;  he  has  simply,  finding  his  voice  less  dominant 
from  the  summit  than  of  old,  compensated  for  its  diminished 
resonance  by  a  closer  approach  to  his  audience.  He  has 
not,  as  he  says  Shakespeare  or  Franklin  would  have  done 
(and  Lincoln  did),  given  his  wisdom  a  comic  form  to  attract 
his  Western  audiences,  but  he  has  descended  from  the  shin 
ing  heights,  and  discourses  from  an  ordinary  platform  with 


80  LIFE  OF 

even  more  calmness  and  self-possession,  if  with  less  of  mys. 
tic  rapture  and  oracular  depth.  The  burden  of  his  message 
is  ever  the  same,  the  all-pervading  Deity,  the  one  human 
soul  in  every  breast,  the  universality  of  spiritual  laws,  the 
exact  correspondence  of  the  moral  and  material  worlds,  the 
inexorable  impartiality  of  Nature,  the  impossibility  of  steal 
ing  a  march  on  eternal  justice,  the  duty  of  man  to  yield  up 
his  egotism  to  the  universal  Soul,  and  walk  by  the  inward 
light.  But  the  joy  of  discovery  is  over  ;  instead  of  the  seer, 
we  have  the  man  of  practical  experience  vouching  for  him. 
Emerson  the  old  beholds  the  work  of  Emerson  the  young, 
and  finds  it  very  good.  Not  a  precept  of  the  latter  but  has 
stood  the  test.  If  Emevson  had  written  nothing  else  than 
these  discourses,  his  reputation  would  never  have  existed  ; 
if  he  had  not  written  them,  it  would  have  lacked  one  pledge 
of  stability. 

The  father  of  the  Samnite  general  who  had  taken  the 
Roman  legions  in  a  trap,  advised  him  either  to  kill  them  all 
or  to  dismiss  them  without  conditions.  This  seems  the 
World's  alternative,  the  former  method  for  choice.  But  if 
the  genius  will  not  be  killed  he  suddenly  finds  himself  adored 
for  work  often  far  inferior  to  that  of  his  neglected  prime.  As 
it  befell  Carlyle,  Browning,  Mill,  so  it  befell  Emerson.  It 
had  taken  years  to  exhaust  a  small  edition  of  "  Nature  "  ; 
**  The  Dial  "  had  been  given  away  or  destroyed  ;  he  had 
written  in  1859,  "  I  have  not  now  one  disciple  "  ;  but  in 
1860  not  a  copy  of  the  "  Conduct  of  Life  "  could  be  had 
within  two  days  after  the  publication  of  the  book.  So  rapid 
a  sale  precluded  any  deliberate  verdict  on  its  merits,  and 
was  in  fact  not  a  tribute  to  the  book,  but  to  the  author,  who 
might  in  a  sense  be  said  to  have  lived  and  written  only  for 
these  forty-eight  hours.  Fame  had  at  last  overtaken  desert, 
and  even  outrun  her  ;  for,  excellent  as  Emerson's  later 
works  still  are,  they  want  inspiration.  The  tersest  of  writers 
shows  some  symptoms  of  garrulity,  and  unconsciously  evades 
the  trouble  of  original  composition  by  a  free  recourse  to  an 
ecdote.  It  is  also  significant  that,  with  great  occasional  ex 
ceptions,  like  "  The  Sovereignty  of  Ethics,"  and  "  The 
Preacher,"  he  has  least  to  say  upon  the  loftiest  themes.  He 


EMERSON.  81 

writes  better  on  wealth,  culture,  eloquence  ;  than  on  poetry, 
imagination,  immortality.  When,  as  is  sometimes  the  case, 
grandeur  is  attained  in  these  later  writings,  it  is  not  the  sub 
lime  of  poetry,  but  of  ethic.  "  Every  man  takes  care  that 
his  neighbor  shall  not  cheat  him.  But  a  day  comes  when 
he  begins  to  care  that  he  do  not  cheat  his  neighbor.  Then 
all  goes  well.  He  has  changed  his  market-cart  into  a 
chariot  of  the  sun."  A  thought  still  more  pithily  embodied 
in  the  precept :  "  Hitch  your  waggon  to  a  star." 

In  1867  Emerson  published  "  May  Day,"  the  most  elab 
orate  of  his  longer  poems.  In  essentials  it  resembles  "Wood 
Notes,"  "  Monadnoc,"  and  the  other  earlier  pieces  in  which 
he  had  striven  to  merge  his  own  individuality  in  Nature's, 
and  to  identify  himself  with  the  life  that  "  sleeps  in  the 
stone,  dreams  in  the  plant,  wakes  in  the  animal."  It  ex 
hibits  a  decided  advance  on  these  effusions,  being  nearly  free 
from  harshnesses  and  obscurities,  while  the  poet's  absorption 
into  the  general  life  of  Nature  is  even  more  complete. 
Nothing  can  more  perfectly  express  the  intoxication  of  fine 
spring  weather  hurrying  the  minstrel,  sometimes  dropping  a 
rhyme  in  his  speed,  along  in  the  general  frolic  of  dithyram* 
bic  joy : 

"  Where  shall  we  keep  the  holiday  ; 
And  duly  greet  the  entering  May  ? 
For  strait  and  low  our  cottage  doors, 
And  all  unmeet  our  carpet  floors  ; 
Nor  spacious  court  nor  monarch's  hall 
Suffice  to  hold  the  festival. 
Up  and  away  !  where  haughty  woods 
Front  the  liberated  floods : 
We  will  climb  the  broad-backed  hills, 
Hear  the  uproar  of  their  joy  ; 
We  will  mark  the  leap  and  gleams 
Of  the  new-delivered  streams, 
And  the  murmuring  rivers  of  sap 
Mount  in  the  pipes  of  the  treen, 
Giddy  with  day,  to  the  topmost  spiie 

6 


82  LIFE  OF 

Which  for  a  spike  of  tender  green 

Bartered  its  powdery  cap ; 

And  the  colors  of  joy  in  the  bird, 

And  the  love  in  its  carol  heard ; 

Frog  and  lizard  in  holiday  coats, 

And  turtle  brave  in  his  golden  spots. 

We  will  hear  the  tiny  roar 

Of  the  insects  evermore, 

While  cheerful  cries  of  crag  and  plain 

Reply  to  the  thunder  of  river  and  main." 

From  the  sensuous  revel  of  teeming  life  and  reckless  energy 
the  poet  ascends  by  many  passages  of  beautiful  natural  de 
scription  to  the  spiritual  conception  of  Spring  as  the  earthly 
type  of  the  renovation  of  the  soul : 

"  Under  gentle  types,  my  Spring 
Masks  the  might  of  Nature's  King, 
An  energy  that  searches  thorough, 
From  Chaos  to  the  dawning  morrow, 
Into  all  our  human  plight, 
The  soul's  pilgrimage  and  flight ; 
In  city  or  in  solitude, 
Step  by  step,  lifts  bad  to  good; 
Without  halting,  without  rest, 
Lifting  Better  up  to  Best ; 
Planting  seeds  of  knowledge  pure, 
Through  earth  to  ripen,  through  heaven  endure.'* 

The  chief  defect  of  this  rapturous  and  most  melodious  poem, 
after  its  occasional  looseness  of  metrical  and  grammatical 
construction,  is  Emerson's  usual  fault  of  want  of  symmetry 
and  coherence,  obscuring  the  development  of  the  thought, 
which,  without  this  abruptness,  would  appear  apt  and  nat 
ural. 

We  must  travel  far  back  to  record  the  decease  of  Emer 
son's  venerable  mother,  who,  beautiful  in  her  death  as  in  her 
life,  softly  faded  out  of  the  world  in  November,  1853.  We 


EMERSON.  83 

have  ourselves  spoken  with  those  who  lovingly  remember  her 
gentleness  and  gentlewomanliness,  her  sweetness  of  manner 
and  of  voice.  No  other  domestic  event  is  recorded  until 
the  marriage  of  Emerson's  youngest  daughter,  Edith,  in 
1865,  to  Colonel  William  N.  Forbes — an  auspicious  union, 
which  in  time  placed  Ernerson  above  pecuniary  anxiety, 
through  the  prudent  management  of  his  son-in-law.  Public 
honors,  meanwhile,  were  falling  fast  upon  him.  In  1863  he 
was  appointed  one  of  the  visitors  to  the  Military  Academy 
at  West  Point,  where  he  attracted  attention  by  his  eager 
curiosity.  Tn  1866  he  received  the  degree  of  LL.D.  from 
his  university,  and  in  1867  he  was  chosen  orator  on  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  day,  "  as  he  had  been  thirty  years  before,"  Mr. 
Cabot  reminds  us,  "  but  not  now  as  a  promising  young  be 
ginner,  from  whom  a  fair  poetical  speech  might  be  expected, 
but  as  the  foremost  man  of  letters  of  New  England.  He 
served  from  1867  to  1879  on  the  Board  of  Overseers  of  the 
University,  basking  contentedly  in  the  grateful  academical 
environment,  but  taking  little  active  part  in  the  administra 
tion.  Once  he  is  recorded  to  have  interfered  decidedly, 
when  his  casting  vote  defeated  a  proposal  for  exempting  the 
students  from  compulsory  attendance  at  morning  prayers. 
He  would  not,  he  said,  deny  the  young  men  the  opportunity 
of  assuming  once  a  day  the  noblest  attitude  man  is  capable 
of,  that  of  prayer.  In  1870  he  delivered  a  course  of  six 
teen  lectures  at  the  University  on  "  The  Natural  History  of 
the  Intellect,"  "which  I  know  the  experts  in  philosophy 
will  not  praise  ;  but  I  have  the  fancy  that  a  realist  is  a  good 
corrector  of  formalism."  His  mind,  it  is  probable,  had  al 
ways  been  too  unsystematic  for  such  a  task,  and  he  was  by 
this  time  incapable  of  any  sustained  intellectual  effort.  He 
fell  back  on  old  material,  the  most  recent  being  the  lectures 
on  "  Philosophy  for  the  People,"  delivered  in  1866,  and 
summarized  in  Mr.  Cabot's  biography.  These  seem  to  have 
teemed  with  acute  and  penetrating  remarks,  but  to  have 
been  at  most  a  very  modest  contribution  to  so  great  a  theme 
as  the  natural  history  of  the  intellect.  Young  in  heart  as 
ever,  Emerson  perceived  that  he  had  grown  old  in  faculty, 


84  LIFE  OF 

and  yielded  a  cheerful  submission  to  the  inevitable  dispensa 
tion  in  his  swan-song,  "  Terminus  "  : 

"  It  is  time  to  be  old, 
To  take  in  sail  : — 
The  god  of  bounds 
^  Who  sets  to  sea  a  shore, 

Came  to  me  in  his  fatal  rounds, 

And  said  :  '  No  more ! 

No  father  spread 

Thy  broad  ambitious  branches,  and  thy  root. 

Fancy  departs  :  no  more  invent, 

Contract  thy  firmament 

To  compass  of  a  tent. 

There's  not  enough  for  this  and  that, 

Make  thy  option  which  of  two ; 

Economise  the  failing  river, 

Not  the  less  revere  the  Giver,  , 

Leave  the  many  and  hold  the  few. 

Timely  wise  accept  the  terms, 

Soften  the  fall  with  wary  foot ; 

A  little  while 
Still  plan  and  smile, 
And,  fault  of  novel  germs, 
Mature  the  unfallen  fruit.* 

As  a  birds  trims  her  to  the  gale, 

I  trim  myself  to  the  storm  of  time, 

I  man  the  rudder,  reef  the  sail, 

Obey  the  voice  at  eve  obeyed  at  prime : 

"Lowly,  faithful,  banish  fear, 

Right  onward  drive  unharmed  ; 

The  port,  well  worth  the  cruise,  is  near, 

And  every  wave  is  charmed." 

Emerson    might   now  say,  "  Good- by,  proud  world,  I'm 
going    home,"  in   another  sense  than  when  in  his  youth  he 


EMERSON.  85 

played  hide-and-seek  with  the  world  in  the  whortleberry 
bushes.  A  repetition  of  the  1870  course  of  lectures  in  1871 
had  greatly  tried  him.  Sixty-four  miles  travel  weekly, 
with  intellectual  mischief,  as  he  nervously  fancied,  at  the 
end  of  it.  "I  have,"  he  tells  Carlyle,  "abundance  of  good 
reading,  and  some  honest  writing  on  the  leading  topics,  but 
in  haste  and  confusion  they  are  misplaced  and  spoiled.  I 
hope  the  ruin  of  no  young  man's  soul  will  here  or  hereafter 
be  charged  to  me  as  having  wasted  his  time  or  confounded 
his  reason."  A  kind  friend,  John  M.  Forbes,  the  father  of 
his  son-in-law,  came  to  the  rescue  by  carrying  him  off, 
April,  1871,  as  one  of  a  party  of  twelve  bound  on  a  trip  to 
California.  Mr.  Thayer,  one  of  the  travelers,  has  recorded 
the  incidents  of  the  excursion,  and  preserved  morsels  of 
Emerson's  conversation.  Emerson  had  brought  with  him 
the  manuscript  of  "  Parnassus,"  a  selection  of  poetry  he  was 
then  preparing  for  the  press ;  and  the  circumstance  made 
his  talk  run  much  upon  the  poets.  "  *  Faust'  was  a  destruc 
tive  poem,  it  lacked  affirmation,  he  did  not  like  it."  The 
second  part  he  knew  but  imperfectly.  He  had  observed 
the  peculiarity  of  the  versification  of  Shakespeare's  "Henry 
the  Eighth,"  and  wished  for  more  light  on  the  problem  of 
its  authorship.  The  coarseness,  as  he  severely  called  it,  of 
the  Decameron  was  made  tolerable,  not  only  by  the  grace 
and  purity  of  the  language,  but  by  its  being  steeped  in 
Italian  nature,  physical  and  moral.  Machiavelli,  he  said, 
wrote  like  the  Devil,  uttering  his  infernal  sentiments  with 
as  much  sweetness  and  coolness  as  if  they  were  summer  air. 
Wordsworth  and  Tennyson  were  quoted  with  high  praise  :  he 
admired  the  quality  of  William  Morris's  verse,  but  deplored 
its  quantity.  He  spoke  highly  of  Byron  as  an  efficient  poet, 
observing  "  there  is  a  sort  of  scenic  and  general  luck  about 
him."  Imagination  was  the  solemn  act  of  the  soul  in  be 
lieving  that  things  have  a  spiritual  significance.  People 
had  been  to  him  with  scruples  about  the  name  of  Christian, 
which  he  did  not  share.  He  was  as  willing  to  be  called 
Christian  as  Platonist  or  Republican.  "  It  did  not  bind 
him  to  what  he  did  not  like.  What  was  the  use  of  going 
about  and  setting  up  a  flag  of  negation  ? "  There  was 


86  LIFE  OF 

never,  deposes  Mr.  Thayer,  a  more  agreeable  travelling 
companion  ;  he  was  always  accessible,  cheerful,  sympathetic, 
considerate,  tolerant ;  and  there  was  always  that  same 
respectful  interest  in  those  with  whom  he  talked,  even  the 
humblest,  which  raised  them  in  their  own  estimation.  The 
incidents  of  the  trip,  indeed,  were  nowise  trying  to  the 
temper.  The  almanac,  Emerson  told  Carlyle,  said  April, 
but  the  day  said  June  ;  the  country  was  covered  with  green 
house  flowers,  and  every  New  England  bird  had  a  gayer 
counterpart.  All  California's  lions  roared  for  Emerson — 
the  Yosemite  cataract,  the  Sequoia  grove,  the  sea-lions  of 
San  Francisco,  aud  Brigham  Young,  now  not  again  to  roar  for 
any  one.  But  the  crown  of  the  journey  was  perhaps  the 
"  Alta  California's  "  character  of  Emerson's  discourse  on 
immortality,  repeated  in  San  Francisco : — "  All  left  the 
church  feeling  that  an  elegant  tribute  had  been  paid  to  the 
creative  genius  of  the  Great  First  Cause,  and  that  a  masterly 
use  of  the  English  language  had  contributed  to  that  end." 

On  the  morning  of  July  24,  1872,  Emerson  was  waked  by 
the  crackling  of  fire,  and  saw  a  light  in  the  closet,  which 
was  next  the  chimney.  Unable  to  reach  the  fire,  he  ran 
down  partly  dressed  to  the  front  gate,  and  called  for  help. 
His  cries  were  heard,  the  neighbors  came  running  from  all 
sides,  but  the  wooden  tenement  could  not  be  saved.  Books, 
manuscripts,  and  furniture  were  almost  entirely  rescued  by 
the  clever  promptitude  of  the  townsmen.  They  were  re 
moved  to  the  Court  House,  where  a  study  was  fitted  up  for 
Emerson  ;  the  houseless  family  found  a  refuge  at  the 
Manse,  where  he  had  lived  before  his  marriage.  He  had 
taken  cold,  suffered  for  some  days  from  an  attack  of  low 
fever,  and,  attention  being  naturally  drawn  to  the  failure  of 
memory  from  which  he  had  already  begun  to  suffer,  this 
was  commonly  attributed  to  the  shock,  incorrectly  in  Mr. 
Cabot's  opinion. 

Excudent  alii  spirantia  mollius  aera.  The  glory  of  the 
United  States  is  public  spirit:  a  feeling  as  finely  displayed 
inwards  men  nf  whom  the  country  is  proud  as  in  the  case  of 
municipal  improvements  or  charil°v^«  foundations.  Ameri 
cans  set  to  work  to  repair  Emerson's  misfortune  aa  thev 


EMERSON.  87 

Vould  have  addressed  themselves  to  restore  the  Capitol. 
Mr.  Francis  Cabot  Lowell  called,  chatted,  and  went  away, 
leaving  behind  him  a  letter  which  was  found  to  enclose  a 
check  for  five  thousand  dollars,  the  gift  of  himself  and  a  few 
others.  Between  eleven  and  twelve  thousand  dollars  more 
were  subscribed,  conveyed  to  Emerson  with  perfect  deli 
cacy,  and  acknowledged  by  him  witli  perfect  grace.  "  The 
list  of  my  benefactors,"  he  said,  *'  cannot  be  read  with  dry 
eyes  or  pronounced  with  articulate  voice.  I  ought  to  be  in 
high  health  to  meet  such  a  call  on  heart  and  mind,  and  not 
the  thoughtless  invalid  I  happen  to  be  at  present."  He  was 
indeed  terribly  shaken :  his  friends  deemed  a  thorough 
change  to  the  Old  World  desirable,  and  in  October  a  thou 
sand  and  twenty  dollars  more  were  presented  to  him  for  that 
purpose.  "I  am  a  lover  of  men,"  said  Emerson,  "but  this 
recent  wonderful  experience  of  their  tenderness  surprises." 
Accompanied  by  his  daughter  Ellen,  he  sailed  on  October 
28th— 

u  To  see,  before  he  died 
The  palms  and  temples  of  the  South. " 

Egypt  was  his  goal,  but  he  passed  through  England, 
France,  and  Italy.  In  London  he  saw  Carlyle,  "  who  opened 
his  arms  and  embraced  me.  We  had  a  steady  outpouring 
for  two  hours  and  more  on  persons,  events,  and  opinions." 
"  It's  a  happiness  to  see  Emerson  once  more,"  said  Carlyle. 
"  But  there's  a  great  contrast  between  him  and  me.  He 
seems  very  content  with  life,  and  takes  much  satisfaction  in 
the  world.  It's  a  very  striking  and  curious  spectacle  to  be 
hold  a  man  in  these  days  so  confidently  cheerful  as  Emer 
son."  Though  Emerson  came  from  the  land  of  Rip  Van 
Winkle,  he  eulogized  the  good,  strong  sleep  he  got  in  Eng 
land,  and  in  general  took  things  most  easily  throughout  his 
tour,  enjoying  all  the  fine  scenery  that  came  in  his  way.  *"*** 
•iiox  going  a  step  out  cf  his  way  for  anything.  &gypt  TIC 
found  "  good  and  gentle,  if  a  little  soporific.  These  colos 
sal  temples,  scattered  over  hundreds  of  miles,  say,  like  the 
Greek  and  like  the  Gothic  piles,  '  O  ye  men  of  the  nine- 


88  LIFE   OF 

teenth  century,  here  is  something  you  cannot  do,  and  must 
respect.'  "  On  his  return  he  spent  a  pleasant  fortnight  with 
Mr.  Russell  Lowell  in  Paris  ;  and  the  list  of  new  acquaint 
ances  he  made  in  England  includes  Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr. 
Browning,  and  Mr.  Ruskin.  He  thought  Mr.  Ruskin  the 
model  lecturer,  but  his  pessimism  worse  than  Carlyle's,  for 
there  was  no  laugh  to  clear  the  air.  He  went  to  Milton's 
grave,  and  inquired,  "  Do  many  come  here?"  "  Yes,  sir, 
Americans  !  "  After  visiting  friends  at  Oxford,  Stratford- 
on-Avon,  and  Durham,  he  fitly  concluded  his  travel  by  two 
days  spent  under  the  roof  of  the  oldest  and  staunchest  of 
his  English  intimates,  Mr.  Alexander  Ireland.  Returning 
to  Concord,  a  surprise  awaited  him.  As  the  engine  ap 
proached  the  station  it  sent  forth  a  note  of  triumph,  peals 
of  bells  responded  from  the  town,  and  Emerson,  escorted 
with  music  between  files  of  smiling  school-children,  found 
his  house  rebuilt,  and  every  book  and  every  picture  in  its 
wonted  place. 

Emerson  had  long  been  a  queened  pawn  ;  he  had  ad 
vanced  from  a  humble  pulpit  to  a  rostrum  whence  he  could 
speak  urbi  et  orbi.  He  was  now  something  more,  a  public 
institution.  All  took  a  pride  in  him  ;  and  wherever  he  went 
in  his  own  part  of  the  country  he  was  tended  by  an  invisible 
body-guard,  vigilant  lest  the  forgetful  old  man  should  take 
hurt  in  boat  or  car.  He  was  deeply  touched  by  the  kind 
ness  of  apparent  strangers.  "  Perhaps  there  should  not  be 
the  word  stranger  in  any  language,"  he  said.  Englishmen 
had  wished  to  assist  in  rebuilding  his  house,  but  he  declined, 
feeling  that  his  own  countrymen  had  done  enough.  Scotch 
admirers  nominated  him  for  the  Lord  Rectorate  of  the 
University  of  Glasgow,  where  he  was  opposed  by  no  less  a 
competitor  than  Disraeli,  and  succumbed  to  the  purer  Cau 
casian.  Carlyle  had  beaten  Disraeli  on  a  like  occasion,  but 
Carlyle  was  at  hand  to  deliver  a  speech.  He  still  occasion 
ally  wrote,  or  gave  a  public  reading:  in  1876  he  went  as 
far  as  Richmond  to  speak  before  the  University  of  Virginia, 
unwilling  to  refuse  an  invitation  which  seemed  like  an  over 
ture  of  reconciliation  to  the  North.  His  last  books  were 
"  Parnassus,"  an  extensive  selection  of  poems,  published  in 


EMERSON.  9 

1874,  including,  it  was  thought,  many  pieces  better  adapted 
for  recitation  than  for  perusal ;  and  the  compilation  from 
his  later  writings  entitled  "  Letters  and  Social  Aims."  It 
had  been  promised  to  a  London  publisher  when  his  powers 
were  more  equal  to  the  tasks  of  selection,  excision,  and 
combination  ;  for  hardly  any  lecture  appeared  as  originally 
delivered.  His  inability  to  fulfil  his  engagement  was  for 
long  a  sore  trouble,  of  which  he  was  relieved  by  the  assist 
ance  of  his  future  biographer,  Mr.  J.  Elliot  Cabot,  whose 
self-denying  spirit  he  had  celebrated  in  the  lines  entitled 
"  Forbearance  " : 

"  Hast  thou  named  all  the  birds  without  a  gun  ? 
Loved  the  wood-rose,  and  left  it  on  its  stalk  ? 
At  rich  men's  tables  eaten  bread  and  pulse  ? 
Unarmed,  faced  danger  with  a  heart  of  trust  ? 
And  loved  so  well  a  high  behavior 
In  man  or  maid,  that  thou  from  speech  refrained, 
Nobility  more  nobly  to  repay  ? 
O  be  my  friend,  and  teach  me  to  be  thine !  " 

After  the  completion  of  his  task,  Mr.  Cabot  would  go  up 
at  intervals,  so  long  as  Emerson  continued  to  read  lectures, 
"  for  the  purpose  of  getting  ready  new  selections  from  his 
manuscripts,  excerpting  and  compounding  them  as  he  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  doing  himself.  There  was  no  danger 
of  disturbing  the  original  order,  for  this  was  already  gone 
past  recovery."  When  thus  engaged,  Emerson  would  take 
him  out  for  afternoon  walks,  or  bring  him  into  his  study  for 
a  nocturnal  chat — a  bright  ghost,  the  shadow  of  his  former 
self,  but  sound  in  body,  and  retaining  perfect  clearness  of 
ideas,  only  afflicted  with  failure  of  memory  and  a  frequent 
inability  to  fit  his  speech  to  his  thought.  His  conversation 
ran  on  happy  themes,  the  progress  and  wonderful  discover 
ies  of  the  age,  the  admirable  persons  he  had  known  from 
Channing  downwards,  the  surprising  virtue  of  the  people  of 
Concord,  great  and  small.  In  one  of  his  latest  letters  to 
Carlyle  he  says  :  *'  A  number  of  young  men  are  growing 
up  here  of  high  promise,  and  I  compare  gladly  the  social 


90  LIFE  OF 

poverty  of  my  youth  with  the  power  on  which  these  draw.' 
As  late  as  1878  he  traversed  the  western  part  of  the  Stat^ 
of  New  York  in  a  fruitless  search  for  a  young  mechanic, 
who  had  written  him  a  grateful  letter,  but  had  questioned 
his  optimism.  His  last  public  appearance  of  importance  waa 
at  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  Unitarian  Church  at  Con 
cord,  New  Hampshire,  which  was  within  one  day  of  the 
same  anniversary  of  his  first  marriage  at  that  very  church. 
He  went  to  see  the  house  in  which  his  bride  had  lived,  but 
could  not  find  it.  No  wonder ;  it  had,  American  fashion, 
been  moved  bodily,  but  existed  still, — emblem  of  the 
speaker's  faculty.  He  shared  in  the  commemoration  pro 
ceedings  by  reading  a  hymn,  undisturbed  by  the  difficulty 
he  found  in  following  the  printed  text. 

Even  in  1881  Emerson  spoke  on  Carlyle's  death  before 
the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  and  on  "  Aristocracy  " 
before  the  Concord  School  of  Philosophy.  In  this  last  year 
of  his  life  we  obtain  a  glimpse  of  him  from  Walt  Whitman, 
who,  on  a  visit  to  Mr.  Sanborn,  and  afterwards  at  Emer 
son's  own  house,  noted  him  as  a  silent  but  apparently  at 
tentive  listener  to  conversation,  "  a  good  color  in  his  face, 
eyes  clear,  with  the  well-known  expression  of  sweetness, 
and  the  old,  clear-peering  aspect  quite  the  same.  A  word 
or  short  phrase  only  when  needed,  and  then  almost  always 
with  a  smile." 

In  February,  1882,  Longfellow  died,  and  Emerson,  a 
friend  of  fifty  years'  standing,  went  to  the  funeral.  "  The 
gentleman  who  lies  here  was  a  beautiful  soul,"  he  said, 
"  but  I  have  forgotten  his  name."  A  few  months  before  he 
had  said  to  a  visitor  :  "  When  one's  wits  begin  to  fail,  it  is 
time  for  the  heavens  to  open  and  take  him  away."  This 
aspiration  was  fulfilled  on  April  27,  1882,  after  a  few  days' 
illness  from  pneumonia.  "  In  these  last  days  in  his  study 
his  thoughts  often  lost  their  connection,  and  he  puzzled  over 
familiar  objects.  But  when  his  eyes  fell  on  a  portrait  of 
Carlyle  that  was  hanging  on  the  wall,  he  said,  with  a  smile 
of  affection,  "  That  is  the  man,  my  man."  When  confined 
to  his  bed,  '*  he  desired  to  see  all  who  came.  To  his  wife 
he  spoke  tenderly  of  their  life  together  and  her  loving  care 


EMERSON.  91 

of  him  ;  they  must  now  part,  to  meet  again  and  part  no 
more.  Then  he  smiled  and  said,  "  Oh,  that  beautiful  boy  !  " 

Seldom  had  "  the  reaper  whose  name  is  Death  "  gathered 
such  illustrious  harvest  as  between  December,  1880,  and 
April,  1882.  In  the  first  month  of  this  period  George 
Eliot  passed  away,  in  the  ensuing  February  Carlyle  fol 
lowed  ;  in  April  Lord  Beaconsfield  died,  deplored  by  his 
party,  nor  unregretted  by  his  country ;  in  February  of  the 
following  year  Longfellow  was  carried  to  the  tomb ;  in 
April  Rossetti  was  laid  to  rest  by  the  sea,  and  the  pave 
ment  of  Westminster  Abbey  was  disturbed  to  receive  the 
dust  of  Darwin.  And  now  Emerson  lay  down  in  death  be 
side  the  painter  of  man  and  the  searcher  of  Nature,  the 
English-Oriental  statesman,  the  poet  of  the  plain  man  and 
the  poet  of  the  artist,  and  the  prophet  whose  name  is  indis- 
solubly  linked  with  his  own.  All  these  men  passed  into 
Eternity  laden  with  the  spoils  of  Time,  but  of  none  of 
them  could  it  be  said,  as  of  Emerson,  that  the  most  shining 
intellectual  glory  and  the  most  potent  intellectual  force  of  a 
continent  had  departed  along  with  him. 

The  man  in  Emerson  is  easily  portrayed,  not  so  the 
author.  Other  thinkers  on  his  level  have  usually  been  more 
or  less  systematic.  They  have,  in  Emersonian  phrase, 
"  hitched  their  wagons,"  not  to  a  star,  but  to  a  formula,  to 
which  their  thoughts  converge,  and  around  which  these  may 
be  grouped.  But  Emerson's  want  of  system  is  the  despair 
of  the  natural  historian  of  philosophy,  and  if  we  place  him 
rather  upon  the  roll  of  poets,  we  are  still  unable  to  remove 
him  from  the  roll  of  anomalies.  Nor  can  the  chronological 
method  be  applied  to  him.  A  literary  activity  extending 
over  the  third  of  a  century  usually  implies  development, 
modification,  restatement  and  recantation,  an  earlier  and  a 
later  manner.  Emerson  never  sang  a  palinode,  never  made 
a  new  departure,  took  no  old  ideas  back,  and  put  no  new 
ideas  forward.  He  did  indeed  apply  his  principles  more 
freely  to  politics  and  ordinary  affairs ;  "  chemic  selection," 
moreover,  gains  more  and  more  the  upper  hand  of  "  flam 
boyant  richness  "  in  his  later  style.  But  with  these  abate 
ments,  and  apart  from  the  evidence  of  date  occasionally  af- 


92  LIFE  OF 

forded  by  historical  allusions,  he  has  left  little  that  he  might 
not  have  written  at  any  time  of  his  life. 

Renouncing,  therefore,  the  endeavor  to  give  a  connected 
view  of  Emerson's  writings,  we  will  briefly  enumerate  some 
of  the  respects  in  which  he  is  most  original  and  remarkable. 

More  than  any  of  the  other  great  writers  of  the  age,  he  is 
a  Voice.  He  is  almost  impersonal.  He  is  pure  from  the 
taint  of  sect,  clique,  or  party.  He  does  not  argue,  but  an 
nounces  ;  he  speaks  when  the  Spirit  moves  him,  and  not 
longer.  Better  than  any  contemporary,  he  exhibits  the  might 
of  the  spoken  word.  He  helps  us  to  understand  the  enigma 
how  Confucius  and  Buddha  and  Socrates  and  greater  teach 
ers  still  should  have  produced  such  marvellous  effects  by 
mere  oral  utterance.  Our  modern  instructors,  for  the  most 
part,  seem  happily  born  in  an  age  of  print,  and  labor  under 
singular  obligations  to  Dr.  Faustus.  With  Emerson  the 
printing  press  seems  an  accident :  he  uses  it  because  he  finds 
it  in  his  way,  but  he  does  not  need  it.  He  would  have  been 
a  light  of  the  age  of  Buddha  or  of  Solon,  as  well  as  of  ours. 

He  is  a  characteristically  American  voice.  He  precisely 
realizes  the  idea  which  the  American  scholar  ought  to  set 
before  him.  American  literature  must  not  be  feeble  and 
imitative.  But  neither  must  it  be  conceited  and  defiant,  a 
rebel  against  rules  founded  in  the  eternal  fitness  of  things. 
Emerson's  attitude  is  perfect,  manly  and  independent, 
slightly  assertive,  as  becomes  the  spokesman  of  a  literature 
on  its  triaL  "  Meek  young  men  grow  up  in  libraries,  be 
lieving  it  their  duty  to  accept  the  views  which  Cicero,  which 
Locke,  which  Bacon,  have  given  ;  forgetful  that  Cicero, 
Locke,  and  Bacon,  were  only  young  men  in  libraries  when 
they  wrote  those  books."  He  puts  the  Old  World  under 
contribution  ;  he  is  full  of  verbal  indebtedness  to  its  philoso 
phers  and  poets  ;  but  what  he  borrows,  that  he  can  repay. 
His  thoughts  continually  repeat  Plato  and  Goethe ;  but 
every  competent  reader  perceives  that  it  is  a  case  of  affinity, 
not  of  appropriation.  Poetical  and  religious  minds  will 
think  alike  :  it  would  nevertheless  have  made  little  real  dif 
ference  to  Emerson  if  Plato  and  Goethe  had  never  lived. 
But  it  would  have  made  a  great  difference  to  this  American 


EMERSON.  93 

if  Washington  had  never  lived.  He  was  thoroughly  pos 
sessed  with  the  ideas  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  when  some  one  sneered  at  them  as  "glittering  general 
ities" — "Glittering  generalities!"  cried  Emerson  indig 
nantly,  "  they  are  blazing  ubiquities !" 

Further,  Emerson  is  an  important  figure  in  American  lit 
erature,  as  continuing,  supplementing,  and  combining  two  of 
the  principal  among  American  thinkers,  parted  but  for  him 
by  an  immeasurable  abyss.  It  will  have  sufficiently  appeared 
from  the  citations  already  made  that  Emerson's  thought  rests 
upon  two  sure  pillars — God  and  man — God,  "re-appearing 
with  all  his  parts  in  every  moss  and  cobweb  ;  "  Man's  soul 
"  calling  the  light  its  own,  and  feeling  that  the  grass  grows 
and  the  stone  falls  by  a  law  inferior  to  and  dependent  on  its 
nature."  The  first  is  the  idea  of  the  greatest  of  New  En 
gland  reasoners,  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  Spinoza  of  Calvin 
ism.  "  God  and  real  existence,"  said  Edwards,  "  are  the 
same."  "  God  is,  and  there  is  none  else."  As,  however, 
he  retained  all  the  tenets  of  Calvinism,  "  he  is,"  says  Mr. 
Leslie  Stephen,  "  in  the  singular  position  of  a  Pantheist 
who  yet  regards  all  nature  as  alienated  from  God.  Clear 
ing  away  the  crust  of  ancient  superstition,  we  may  still  find 
in  Edwards  writings  a  system  of  morality  as  ennobling,  and 
a  theory  of  the  universe  as  elevating,  as  can  be  discovered  in 
any  theology."  This  "  clearing  away  "  was  the  very  oper 
ation  which  Emerson,  whose  study  may  have  been  but  little 
in  Jonathan  Edwards,  did  nevertheless  virtually  perform  on 
his  system  : 

"  He  threw  away  the  worser  part  of  it, 
And  lived  the  purer  with  the  other  half." 

His  connection  with  Channing  on  the  side  of  humanity  is 
as  intimate  as  his  connection  with  Edwards  on  the  side  of 
Divinity,  and  his  obligation  is  far  more  direct  and  personal. 
The  special  distinction  of  Channing  is  his  enthusiastic  asser 
tion  of  the  dignity  of  man,  a  mean  animal  in  the  estimation 
of  most  theologians.  Emerson,  as  we  have  seen,  thought 
that  lie  owed  little  to  Channing's  conversation,  but  he  im« 


94  LIFE  OF 

bibed  the  speaker's  spirit  at  every  pore.  His  magnificent 
claims  for  man  as  the  organ  of  the  Universal  Soul  are  but 
Channing's  humanitarianism  quickened  and  sublimed  by 
alliance  with  Edward's  Pantheism.  When  Channing  told 
George  Combe  that  "  he  did  not  think  much  intellect  was 
necessary  to  discover  truth  ;  all  that  was  wanted  was  an 
earnest  love  of  it  ;  seek  for  it,  and  it  comes  of  itself  some 
how,"  he  gave  Emerson  a  text  to  "  write  large."  "  The 
soul  is  in  her  native  realm,  and  it  is  wider  than  space,  older 
than  time,  wider  than  hope,  rich  as  love.  Pusillanimity  and 
fear  she  refuses  with  a  beautiful  scorn  ;  they  are  not  for  her 
who  putteth  on  her  coronation  robes,  and  goes  out  through 
universal  love  to  universal  power." 

Next  to  religion,  morals.  Here  Emerson's  special  char 
acteristics  are  manifold.  The  most  important  are  summed 
up  in  Matthew  Arnold's  brief  and  exquisite  character  of  him 
as  "  The  friend  and  aider  of  those  who  would  live  in  the 
spirit."  Arnold  compares  him  to  Marcus  Aurelius,  to  whom 
the  same  character  is  equally  applicable.  Mr.  Thayer, 
nevertheless,  is  right  in  observing  that  Emerson  is  Aurelius 
and  something  more.  "  Marcus  Aurelius  was  not  a  man 
possessed.  Emerson  was.  His  morals  are  not  merely  mor 
als,  they  are  morals  on  fire."  Add  to  this  that  Aurelius  is 
not  an  optimist:  or  at  most  his  optimism  is  that  of  acquies 
cence  and  resignation  ;  while  Emerson's  is  that  of  the  morn 
ing  stars  singing  together,  and  the  sons  of  God  shouting  for 
joy.  His  faith  (for,  after  all,  optimism  is  a  plain  inference 
from  the  existence  of  God)  has  brought  upon  him  more  ob 
jurgation  than  all  his  heresies.  Mr.  Morley,  to  whom  death 
is  "  a  terrifying  phantom  "  and  life  u  a  piteous  part  in  a  vast 
drama,"  naturally  finds  "his  eyes  sealed  to  at  least  one-half 
of  the  actualities  of  nature  and  the  gruesome  possibilities  of 
things."  As  regards  the  "possibilities,"  Emerson  would 
perhaps  have  replied  by  his  own  stanza  : 

**  Some  of  your  ills  you  have  cured, 

And  the  sharpest  you  still  have  survived ; 
But  what  torments  of  pain  you  endured 
From  the  evils  that  never  arrived  !  " 


EMERSON.  95 

As  respects  the  "actualities,"  the  case  is  stronger,  but 
Emerson  never  said  that  all  existing  things  were  the  best, 
but  that  they  were  for  the  best.  He  insists  that  all  things 
gravitate  towards  the  good,  and  that  this  progression  is  in 
finite  ;  which,  if  we  look  back  only  as  far  as  the  time  when 
the  worm  first  essayed  "  to  mount  the  spires  of  form,"  seems 
an  irrefragable  conclusion.  From  the  moral  indifference 
often  justly  chargeable  upon  optimists  of  Oriental  type, 
Emerson  is  protected  by  the  Marcus  Aurelius  element  in  his 
constitution.  He  cannot  be  accused  of  making  the  ways  of 
virtue  too  easy.  His  writings  are  full  of  the  loftiest  lessons 
of  renunciation.  He  it  was  who  wrote  : 

"  Though  love  repine  and  reason  chafe, 

There  came  a  voice  without  reply  :— 
'Tis  man's  perdition  to  be  safe, 

When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die." 

"  It  is  in  vain,*'  he  says,  "  to  make  a  paradise,  but  for 
good  men.  The  resources  of  America  and  its  future  will  be 
immense  only  to  wise  and  virtuous  men."  "  When  you 
shall  say,"  he  warns  the  scholar,  "  as  others  do,  so  will  I ;  I 
renounce,  I  am  sorry  for  it,  my  early  visions  ;  I  must  eat 
the  good  of  the  land,  and  let  learning  and  romantic  expecta 
tions  go  until  a  more  convenient  season  :  then  dies  the  man 
in  you  ;  then  once  more  perish  the  buds  of  art,  and  poetry, 
and  science,  as  they  have  done  already  in  a  thousand  thou 
sand  men."  u  The  man,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "  who  re 
nounces  himself,  comes  to  himself." 

Politics,  being  but  applied  morals,  come  next  under  re 
view  :  and  here  too  Emerson  was  original  and  significant. 
Like  Carlyle,  he  was  in  this  department  very  weak  as  well 
as  very  strong  :  and  even  his  strength  was  chiefly  as  a  pro 
test  against  certain  evil  tendencies  of  his  day.  Carlyle's 
paradoxical  glorification  of  despotism  had  the  merit  of  forc 
ing  into  strong  relief  the  most  pernicious  features  of  the 
time,  the  cowardice  of  rulers,  the  weakness  of  authority, 
the  general  disposition  to  make  words  do  duty  for  deeds. 
Emerson's  extreme  assertion  of  individual  right,  which 


96  LIFE  OP 

•would  have  logically  resulted  in  the  dissolution  of  the 
State,  was  still  valuable  as  a  counteractive  of  one  of  the 
most  mischievous  features  of  American  politics,  the  ten 
dency  to  swamp  all  individuality  in  party  organization,  con 
trolled  in  the  last  resort  by  the  cunning  and  the  base. 
Emerson  himself  came  to  see  that  "  easy  good-nature  had 
been  the  dangerous  foible  of  the  Republic."  This  admission 
is  from  his  oration  on  the  death  of  President  Lincoln  :  the 
peroration  of  which  is  one  of  the  best  instances  of  the 
grandeur  he  attains  when,  rising  above  the  local  and  tempo 
rary  in  politics,  he  deals  with  the  essential  and  eternal : — 

"The  ancients  believed  in  a  serene  and  beautiful  Genius  which 
ruled  in  the  affairs  of  nations,  which,  with  a  slow  but  stern 
justice,  carried  forward  the  fortunes  of  certain  chosen  houses? 
weeding  out  sinful  offenders  or  offending  families,  and  securing  at 
last  the  firm  prosperity  of  the  favorites  of  heaven.  It  was  too 
narrow  a  view  of  the  eternal  Nemesis.  There  is  a  serene  provi 
dence  which  rules  the  fate  of  nations,  which  makes  little  account 
of  time,  little  of  one  generation  or  race,  makes  no  account  of  dis 
asters,  conquers  alike  by  what  is  called  defeat  or  what  is  called 
victory,  thrusts  aside  enemy  and  obstruction,  crushes  everything 
immoral  as  inhuman,  and  obtains  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the 
best  race  by  the  sacrifice  of  everything  which  resists  the  moral 
laws  of  the  world.  It  makes  its  own  instruments,  creates  the 
man  of  the  time,  trains  him  in  poverty,  inspires  his  genius,  and 
arms  him  for  his  task.  It  has  given  every  race  its  own  talent, 
and  ordains  that  only  that  race  which  combines  perfectly  with  the 
virtues  of  all  shall  endure." 

This  maxim  of  the  one  special  faculty  of  each  race  and 
each  man  was  a  favorite  one  with  Emerson.  "  A  man," 
he  says,  "  is  like  a  bit  of  Labrador  spar,  which  has  no  lustre 
as  you  turn  it  in  your  hand  until  you  come  to  a  particular 
angle,  then  it  shows  deep  and  beautiful  colors."  The  illus 
tration  conducts  us  to  the  field  of  science,  where  Emerson's 
position  is  again  exceptional,  and  this  time  of  the  very 
strongest.  He  fills  the  place  which  Goethe's  death  had  left 


EMERSON.  97 

void,  of  a  poet  divining  the  secrets  of  nature  by  his  in. 
stincts  of  beauty  and  religion.  The  gates  of  the  temple  of 
modern  science  turn  upon  the  two  main  hinges  of  his 
thought — real  unity  in  seeming  multiplicity ;  immanent, 
not  external  power.  Of  unity  he  says,  "  Eacli  animal  or 
vegetable  form  remembers  the  next  inferior  and  predicts  the 
next  higher.  There  is  one  animal,  one  plant,  one  matter, 
and  one  force.'*  Of  Divine  immanence  : — "  There  is  a  kind 
of  latent  omniscience  not  only  in  every  man,  but  in  every 
particle.  That  convertibility  we  so  admire  in  plants  and 
animal  structures,  whereby  the  repairs  and  the  ulterior 
uses  are  subserved,  when  one  part  is  wounded,  or  deficient, 
by  another  ;  this  self-help  and  self-creation  proceed  from  the 
same  original  power  which  works  remotely  in  grandest  or 
meanest  structures  by  the  same  design,  works  in  lobster  or 
mite,  even  as  a  wise  man  would  if  imprisoned  in  that  poor 
form.  'Tis  the  effort  of  God,  of  the  Supreme  Intellect,  in 
the  extreme  frontier  of  his  universe."  This  is  from  one  of 
his  latest  writings  :  in  the  earliest  he  had  said :  "  The 
noblest  ministry  of  Nature  is  to  stand  as  the  apparition  of 
God.  It  is  the  organ  through  which  the  universal  Spirit 
speaks  to  the  individual,  and  strives  to  lead  back  the  in 
dividual  to  it."  No  wonder  that  a  natural  philosopher  who 
is  also  a  poet — Professor  Tyndall — should  have  written  in 
his  copy  of  "  Nature,"  "  Purchased  by  inspiration." 

Nature  glides  into  art  by  the  pathway  of  beauty,  by 
which  art  travels  back  to  her.  Emerson,  as  a  writer,  stands 
in  this  middle  ground  ;  he  is  rather  a  votary  of  the  beauti 
ful  than  an  artist.  From  his  preference  for  the  classical 
over  the  romantic  school,  one  would  have  expected  to  have 
found  the  sentiment  of  form  strongly  developed  in  him. 
On  the  contrary,  few  have  been  so  incapable  of  fashioning 
a  symmetrical  whole.  He  does  achieve  it  now  and  then  in 
a  short  poem,  but  only  by  a  sort  of  casual  inspiration  or 
mental  miracle.  His  single  thoughts  are  commonly  beauti 
fully  moulded  and  exquisitely  polished,  but  they  are  miniature 
wholes,  not  members  of  a  great  whole.  He  rarely  tests  his 
constructive  faculty  by  the  delineation  of  a  character  or  the 
narrative  of  a  sequence  of  events.  What  is  peculiar  to  him, 
7 


98  LIFE  OF 

and  ample  recompense  for  all  his  defects,,  i«  the  atmosphere 
of  diffused  beauty  in  which  his  works  lie  bathed.  They 
glimmer  with  a  magical  light,  like  twilight  air,  or  the  waters 
of  the  Concord  river  in  his  own  beautiful  description  : 
"  As  the  flowing  silver  reached  the  clump  of  trees  it  dark 
ened,  and  yet  every  wave  celebrated  its  passage  through  the 
shade  by  one  sparkle."  This  fluid,  living,  fluctuating 
beauty,  by  enveloping  the  entire  composition,  makesamenda 
for  the  want  of  linked  continuity  of  thought.  An  essay  of 
his  is  like  a  piece  of  lustrous  silk,  it  changes  as  the  light 
falls  upon  it ;  now  one  piece  chiefly  charming,  now  another ; 
in  a  flat  mind  the  whole  disappoints ;  in  a  genial  mood  one 
would  say  to  Emerson,  with  Emerson  : 

"Thou  can'st  not  wave  thy  staff  in  air, 

Or  dip  thy  paddle  in  the  lake ; 
But  it  carves  the  bow  of  beauty  there, 
And  ripples  in  rhymes  the  oar  forsake." 

This  general  investiture  of  loveliness  is  unfavorable  to  sus 
tained  eloquence.  When  Emerson  essays  high-wrought 
passages  they  are  apt  to  die  away,  or  rather  to  melt  into  a 
lower  strain  by  such  gentle  gradations  that  you  must  look 
up  to  see  how  far  you  have  come  down.  His  isolated  fine 
sayings  may  be  counted  and  rated  like  gems  :  but  the  per 
vading  beauty  of  his  work  has  the  character  which  he  too 
absolutely  attributes  to  all  beauty ;  it  is  "  like  opaline 
doves'-neck  lustres,  hovering  and  evanescent."  "  There  is 
nothing  so  wonderful  in  any  particular  landscape  as  the 
necessity  of  being  beautiful  under  which  every  landscape 
lies."  This  peculiarity  makes  it  difficult  to  assay  and  ap 
praise  him  by  quotation  ;  v^e  water  in  the  vase  never  seems 
quite  the  same  as  the  water  in  the  spring.  So  far  as  the 
charm  of  his  style  is  communicable,  it  seems  to  reside  in  his 
instinct  for  selecting  the  words  which  wear  the  most  witch 
ing  aspect,  call  up  the  fairest  associations,  and  most  adorn 
the  matter  in  hand.  There  could  not  be  a  happier  instance 
of  "  proper  words  in  proper  places,"  than  the  first  two  sen» 
tences  of  the  address  at  the  Cambridge  Divinity  School, 


EMERSON.  99 

delivered,  be  it  observed,  in  June :  "  In  this  refulgent 
summer  it  has  been  a  luxury  to  draw  the  breath  of  life. 
The  grass  grows,  the  buds  burst,  the  meadow  is  spotted  with 
fire  and  gold  in  the  tint  of  flowers."  Any  other  epithet 
than  refulgent  would  have  been  a  misfit.  What  effect,  too, 
is  conferred  upon  a  simple  catalogue  of  natural  phenomena 
by  perfect  propriety  of  diction,  every  word  beautiful,  and 
every  word  right ! 

"  It  seems  as  if  the  day  was  not  wholly  profane  in  which  we 
have  given  heed  to  some  natural  object.  The  fall  of  snowflakes 
in  a  still  air,  preserving  to  each  crystal  its  perfect  form ;  the  blow 
ing  of  sleet  over  a  wide  sheet  of  water,  and  over  plains  ;  the  wav 
ing  ryefield ;  the  mimic  waving  of  acres  of  houstonia,  whose  in 
numerable  florets  whiten  and  ripple  before  the  eye ;  the  reflec 
tions  of  trees  and  flowers  in  glassy  lakes  ;  the  musical,  steaming, 
odorous  south  wind,  which  converts  all  trees  to  wind-harps  ;  the 
crackling  and  spurting  of  hemlock  in  the  flames;  or  of  pine  logs, 
which  yield  glory  to  the  walls  and  faces  in  the  sitting  room — 
these  are  the  music  and  pictures  of  the  most  ancient  religion." 

The  subjective  writer  who  imparts  his  own  being  freely 
to  his  reader — like  Burns,  or  Shelley,  or  Carlyle,  or  Emer 
son — has  this  advantage  over  even  greater  writers — Homer, 
Shakespeare,  Milton — whose  themes  lie  outside  themselves, 
that  he  can  arouse  personal  affection,  and  a  fond  concern  for 
the  perpetuity  of  his  fame."  Love,"  says  Emerson,  "prays. 
It  makes  covenants  with  Eternal  Power  in  behalf  of  this 
dear  mate."  Throughout  Emerson's  writings  there  is  not  a 
hint  of  his  subjection  to  "  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds," 
but  it  is  an  infirmity  which  his  lovers  and  friends  must  take 
upon  themselves.  One  reflection  occurs  immediately  :  he 
can  never  get  beyond  the  English  language.  He  has  been 
excellently  translated  into  German,  and  even  into  Italian  : 
it  is,  perhaps,  within  the  resources  of  French  prose  to  pro 
vide  a  better  translation  still.  But  no  merely  French,  or 
German,  or  Italian  reader  will  have  the  least  notion  of  the 
magic  of  his  diction  :  hardly  even  will  the  foreigner  well 
verged  in  English  enjoy  him  to  the  full.  As  regards  the 


100  LIFE  OP 

durability  of  his  reputation  with  the  English  race,  Emeis 
son,  like  most  of  the  great  moderns  who  have  written  much 
and  lived  long,  stands  in  his  own  light.  No  more  than 
Goethe,  than  Wordsworth,  than  Hugo,  has  he  given  us  only 
of  his  best.  The  tribunal  of  letters  looks  grave,  in  the  per 
sons  of  Mr.  John  Morley  and  of  Matthew  Arnold.  "  There 
are  pages,"  says  the  former  quite  truly,  "which  remain  mere 
abracadabra,  incomprehensible  and  worthless."  And  even  the 
good  is  faulty,  observes  Arnold,  with  equal  truth.  Emerson's 
diction  wants  "the  requisite  wholeness  of  good  tissue."  Yet 
even  these  accusing  angels  became  compurgators,  and  dis 
miss  Ernerson  with  a  passport  to  posterity.  Another  kind 
of  immortality,  perhaps  the  only  kind  which  he  greatly 
valued,  is  his  already.  He  is  incorporated  with  the  moral 
consciousness  of  his  nation.  "  His  essential  teaching,"  says 
Professor  Norton,  in  a  letter  to  the  writer,  "  has  become 
part  of  the  unconsciously  acquired  creed  of  every  young 
American  of  good  and  gracious  nature."  If  more  is  to  be 
claimed  for  Emerson,  as  it  well  may,  we  should  rest  the 
claim,  apart  from  his  literary  worth,  on  his  impersonation  of 
one  of  the  main  tendencies  of  his  time,  and  his  rebuke  of 
another.  This  is  an  age  of  science,  and  science  has  found 
no  such  literary  interpreter  as  Emerson.  Not  only,  says 
Professor  Tyndall,  is  Emerson's  religious  sense  entirely  un 
daunted  by  the  discoveries  of  science ;  but  all  such  discov 
eries  he  comprehends  and  assimilates.  "  By  Emerson 
scientific  conceptions  are  continually  transmuted  into  the 
finer  forms  and  warmer  hues  of  an  ideal  world."  While 
thus  in  sympathy  with  his  age  where  it  is  right,  he  is  against 
it  where  it  is  wrong.  It  has,  as  a  whole,  made  the  capital 
mistake  of  putting  happiness  before  righteousness.  Utili 
tarianism  has  begotten  effeminacy,  and  effeminacy  discon 
tent,  and  discontent  despair.  Posterity  will  see  in  Emerson 
one  man  valiant  and  manly  in  a  repining  age.  A  lesser  man 
might  earn  greatness  thus.  The  story  is  told  of  shipwrecked 
mariners  on  a  rock  relieved  from  fear  when  the  lightning-flash 
revealed  a  humble  tuft  of  samphire,  for  the  samphire  is  never 
covered  by  sea-water.  Welcome  in  such  a  plight  the  ob- 
scure  weed,  much  more  the  brilliant  flower. 


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